Need for Speed Heat Has No Loot Boxes or “Surprise Mechanics”

Yesterday, EA finally revealed Need for Speed Heat, the newest entry in the long-running racing game series coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC later this year. Unfortunately, EA didn’t accompany the reveal with many details on the game. Thankfully though, said salient details are starting to roll in from other places, such as developers on the game over on Reddit. For example, thanks to a developer interacting with fans on Reddit, we now know the game will not have any loot boxes or, as EA likes to call them, “surprise mechanics.”

Word of no loot boxes or surprise mechanics comes way of an EA community manger. As you will know, this is pretty big news given how stuffed with monetization Need for Speed Payback was. That said, just because there’s no loot boxes doesn’t mean there won’t be any monetization. There’s a good chance there will be still be cosmetic microtransactions, but, at the moment, this hasn’t been confirmed.

Of course, loot boxes aren’t inherently bad to have in a game, but they are less preferred. And given that EA has earned a pretty negative reputation for using them so much, it’s good to see it once again pumping the breaks on the game mechanic, which is becoming increasingly illegal around the world.

Need for Speed Heat is in development for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and is set to release worldwide on November 8, priced at $60.

“Need for Speed Heat sends fans to Palm City, a brand-new open world where street racers have gathered to make their names known,” reads an official pitch of the game. “By day, players compete in the Speedhunters Showdown, a sanctioned competition where they earn Bank to customize and upgrade their garage of high-performance cars. At night, players risk it all to build their Rep in underground races where a rogue police task force roams the streets, ready to take racers down and swipe all their earnings. The roads, the risks, and the rides never end in this street racer where a player can roll deep with their crew, build their garage full of hot cars, and make the city their nonstop playground.”