Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 now has duplicated protected loot boxes.
Dupe-protected crates, as they’re called in-game, were added to the Black Market yesterday, 1st July. They contain three duplicate-protected items from the reserves pool, but you’re protected against getting duplicates.
Black Ops 4’s standard loot boxes have a chance of spitting out a duplicate item, much to the annoyance of players. With standard loot boxes, if you get three duplicates, you get a re-roll.
So, duplicate-protected loot boxes are welcome. What’s interesting, too, is they have to be earned. Currently, there’s no way for you to pay real-world money for the duplicate-protected loot boxes. Instead, you have to trade in six regular cases to get one duplicate-protected loot box. Cases are earned through gameplay – from ranking up the reserve case wheel (you get one for roughly every hour of play) and completing the recently-added contracts.
The deal seems good on the face of it. With a case there’s a decent chance of getting a duplicate item. Trading in six of these for three duplicate-protected items is a no brainer, really.
What we have here – it seems – is an update to Black Ops 4 that does not appear to be awful. After nearly a year spent reporting on grim after grim microtransaction additions to Treyarch’s shooter, here we have an addition that feels good because it’s not disgusting.
Questions remain. Are the duplicate-protected crates a permanent addition to the game? Treyarch hasn’t mentioned them before and still hasn’t. Hopefully they’re not tied to a limited-time event. And how will they work with the new Ultra Weapon Bribes, which guarantee players a weapon they don’t have?