Bungie to Remove Paid Loot Boxes From Destiny 2 Next Season

The upcoming Season 10 of Destiny 2 will see Bungie remove paid loot boxes from the game. Destiny 2 director Luke Smith announced in a lengthy "Director's Cut" blog post on Wednesday that Bungie is removing the ability for players to purchase Bright Engrams, which are essentially paid loot boxes. A Bright Engram can be purchased in the Eververse store using Silver, an in-game currency that can be purchased with real money, and decoded to reveal random shaders, emotes and more. "For Season 10, we're doing away with Bright Engrams as purchasable items," Smith wrote in the blog post. "We want players to know what something costs before they buy it. Bright Engrams don't live up to that principle so we will no longer be selling them on the Eververse Store, though they will still appear on the Free Track of the Season Pass." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=destiny-2-forsaken-screenshots&captions=true"] As Smith pointed out, Bright Engrams will still be in the game on the free track of the season pass but players will no longer be able to spend the premium currency of Silver on them. Smith doesn't bring up Bright Engrams again in his blog post and it sounds like they will no longer be available for purchase right from the start of Season 10. With the removal of Bright Engrams from Destiny 2 soon, it's important to note that Bungie still has plenty of items in the game that players can purchase such as its season pass. Premium random loot boxes have been on their way out of video games in recent years, with the entire discussion coming to a head in 2017 with Star Wars Battlefront 2's loot box situation. EA's handling of loot boxes in Battlefront 2 had state representatives taking a stand and calling for legislation against "the spread of predatory practices in online gaming." A U.S. Senator went so far as to introduce a bill that would ban the selling of loot boxes to children. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/10/12/the-esrb-and-the-loot-box-gambling-controversy"] EA DICE said the company hit rock bottom with that loot box controversy. The Entertainment Software Association announced last year that Nintendo, Mircosoft, and Sony were all working on new loot box policies for their platforms that would disclose a range of odds associated with a player's purchase. EA seems to have backed off of loot boxes and it seems Bungie is joining the ranks of companies like EA doing the same. This might be a result of Bungie's recently-gained independence from Activision. Season 10 of Destiny 2 is expected to begin soon although no start date has been announced just yet. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.