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Tag: Strategy video games

  • Call Of Duty: Should You Let The Battle Pass Automatically Unlock?

    Call Of Duty: Should You Let The Battle Pass Automatically Unlock?

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    First introduced in 2022’s Modern Warfare II, Call of Duty currently features a nonlinear battle pass themed like a geographic map. While this allows players to choose what they want to unlock from the pass instead of going through a scripted path, it can be a little confusing to newcomers used to more traditional, linear sets of unlockables. What’s more, the “token” system that CoD uses to unlock stuff from the battle pass can be a little confusing as well, especially if you’re not sure whether you should just let the pass automatically unlock itself by spending tokens for you.

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    This guide will demystify Call of Duty’s battle pass and help you decide whether or not you should turn on auto-unlock.

    Call of Duty’s battle pass explained

    The battle pass is made up of several “Sectors,” each of which contains five rewards. Claim all five and you’ll finish that Sector, letting you move on to an adjoining Sector from there.

    As you play Call of Duty, you’ll gain XP for finishing challenges and performing well. As you finish matches, you’ll slowly gain tokens for the battle pass from XP (you can also spend real money on Call of Duty Points to skip the grind).

    Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku

    You can then spend tokens on each “Sector” of the battle pass, with each Sector requiring five tokens to complete and granting one reward per token spent (some, like the HRM-9 Sector added during Season 1 Reloaded, might unlock via challenges instead of tokens).

    Once you’ve cleared a Sector by spending five tokens on all of its rewards, you can unlock a neighboring sector of your choice and start spending more tokens there.

    You’ll notice that the battle pass allows you to either spend tokens manually or leave it on automatic, with the game unlocking Sector rewards in the background as you play. You can toggle this option on the lower right side of the battle pass menu.

    Should you unlock Sector rewards manually or automatically?

    While auto is a simple way to let your rewards from the battle pass unlock on their own, it’s really only a benefit if you play Call of Duty regularly—like every day regularly. But if you’re strapped for time, it makes more sense to manually unlock the Sectors, prioritizing the ones with XP bonuses and Call of Duty Points as rewards.

    A screenshot shows the Call of Duty battle pass.

    Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku

    Each battle pass contains Call of Duty Points (CP) which can be used to purchase premium battle passes for future seasons. If you secure all of these points, you can sort of get away with only paying for one battle pass, using the points you’ll earn from one to purchase the next.

    By manually charting your path through the battle pass sectors, you can prioritize unlocking Call of Duty Points (as well as XP boosts to gain Tokens faster) to spend on future seasons.

    Call of Duty’s seasons can fly by if you’re not on top of the game every day. Making the most of your time by spending your battle pass tokens on CoD Points is the best way to prioritize your time.

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    Claire Jackson

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  • Game Removes Loot Boxes, Players Revolt Instead Of Celebrate

    Game Removes Loot Boxes, Players Revolt Instead Of Celebrate

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    A man with a cake hat sits near a logo for removed loot boxes.

    Popular free-to-play mobile game Brawl Stars is doing something a bit different. In an era where it seems every game is trying to nickel and dime you with more and more stuff to buy, instead it’s removing loot boxes and all random rewards entirely from the game. It’s yet another sign that loot boxes are likely to become a relic of the past as lawmakers and players push back on the random rewards. But that doesn’t mean Brawl Stars players are universally happy about their removal.

    Released in 2019 for phones and tablets, Brawl Stars mixed cute characters with MOBA-like gameplay and some battle royale elements. The end result was a fun top-down competitive action game that I played for weeks and weeks. But since I stopped playing, millions have continued to enjoy it: Brawl Stars has made over a billion dollars in profit for Supercell and still has an active player base and community. Now, Supercell has removed all loot boxes from the game, and reaction to the change is oddly mixed.

    Announced in a Brawl Talk video posted last week, Supercell’s latest update to Brawl Stars has removed all random rewards from the game. These boxes were mainly used to unlock new characters in the game. Since its release three years ago, Brawl Stars has heavily featured loot boxes as part of its rewards. But with yesterday’s update, that’s no longer the case.

    Supercell / Brawl Stars

    “No more probabilities, no more random rewards, and no more playing the guessing game when you unlock Brawlers,” said the game’s lead designer Frank Keienburg in Supercell’s Brawl Talk video.

    Yesterday, as part of this update, all unclaimed boxes were automatically opened and all the rewards were given to players accordingly. Moving forward, Keienburg and Supercell say that all rewards—including its battle passes—will be replaced with “different, deterministic rewards, some of which are new to the game.” Now, players have a new battle pass-like feature, The Starr Road, which lets them unlock all characters for free via grinding. Players can now just buy any brawler they want with gems, instead of randomly buying dozens of loot boxes to maybe get a specific hero.

    “We’re making this change for a few reasons,” continued Keienburg. “Mainly, moving away from probabilities and chance, which will make things more fair and predictable for you. It also gives you clear and exciting goals every time you play the game.”

    Of course, there’s also the possibility that Supercell and other devs are removing loot boxes as various governments around the world begin cracking down on them with proposed new laws and regulations.

    While I think removing loot boxes is a good thing and something worth celebrating—especially as mobile games continue to be some of the worst offenders with even good games like Marvel Snap including predatory purchases of over $100 or more—the community reaction is far less positive. While some players seem happy about the removal of random reward crates, others expressed disappointment. The comments on the Brawl Talk video has players rallying against the devs and demanding boxes return to Brawl Stars.

    Why? For some it seems that the excitement of a loot box outweighed the frustration that often accompanies them. Others suggested they now have little interest in playing the game since random rewards are being removed. (I think some of these people need to stop and think if they really like Brawl Stars or just like pulling a virtual lever on a slot machine…) We saw something similar to this happen with Overwatch 2’s release, where some players were angry at the removal of loot boxes and demanded they be returned to the game. And while I agree that progression in Overwatch 2 sucks at the moment, I’d rather Blizzard figure out a way to fix that doesn’t involve bringing back loot boxes, even if it did give you a lot of free ones before.

    The reality is that as games continue to become more and more popular, more countries will begin investigating the industry and how it makes money. And loot boxes are likely never to return in vogue as long as so many governments are leading crusades to regulate or outlaw them.

     

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    Zack Zwiezen

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