H1Z1: Fans Livid As SOE Turns On Their Word, Makes Game Pay To Win

H1Z1 fans are livid, as SOE has just revealed that they will be adding pay to win elements into the game.

This comes in the form of paid airdrops that will bring highly sought after, but randomly selected items, such as guns, equipment, etc.

SOE revealed this information in their introduction to the game’s Early Access. We are sharing the text of their statement verbatim below.

We have made the decision to allow paid for airdrops into the game with things like guns and other things being randomly selected as part of the airdrop. We’re making them highly contested and building a whole set of rules around this, but you should be aware that our goal is to make this a way to keep things interesting on the servers but still be contested. If these offend your sensibilities just know that they are going to be there. We have gone out of our way to make sure the airdrops are contested in-game and that you can’t simply expect to easily walk about to the airdrop and grab it. Even if you paid for it.

To be clear, no less than SOE head John Smedley declared that H1Z1’s airdrops will only contain cosmetic items April of last year. Now, it is not just the decision itself, but the way it was simply dropped out of nowhere, without proper time for the community to assess it, that has left many gamers feeling burned.

You can see one streamer confirm paid airdrops here, and a panoply of long threads here, here,  and here and you can see even more here.

In the meantime, SOE seems preoccupied with launching the game and addressing login issues, so they haven’t really responded to any of these complaints. John is also getting @ replies about shifting to pay-to-win, but they have notably not responded.