PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has had a reward system for quite a while now, but fans don’t exactly love it. You can purchase randomized cosmetic crates with “Battle Points” that you earn in-game, but the system funnels you into spending real money too quickly for some people’s tastes. Enter the new “Supply” system.
As part of the newly announced and impressively substantial 2.1 update—which also includes the long-awaited training mode, a new vehicle, tweaks to the BP system, a new weapon, and numerous other changes—PUBG will be adding a mission-based reward system. Missions include objectives like “deal 700 damage to enemies” and “survive at least 20 minutes.” They’ll grant you survival XP. Every time you earn a survival level, you unlock a reward.
However, according to players who’ve tried the system out on PUBG’s test server, most rewards are temporary and disappear after a week. “Try out this item!” reads the prompt that accompanies new unlocks. It notes, however, that every ten levels, you’ll gain a “reward,” presumably in the form of an item you get to keep.
This has some players feeling like the Supply system is also trying to slyly beckon players into spending money on PUBG’s marketplace. “So the reward system is an ad for Steam Marketplace... Nice,” wrote one player on the PUBG subreddit.
For now, the Supply system is only on the game’s test server, so things could change. But if they don’t, maybe look at this as a fitting room or a suit rental, albeit one where everybody wants you dead and aren’t above bashing your head in with a frying pan to get the job done. Good news, though: it’s a video game, so they won’t ruin the suit!
You’re reading Steamed, Kotaku’s page dedicated to all things in and around Valve’s PC gaming service.