Game Director Hugo Martin confirmed on Facebook (thanks DualShockers!) that Doom Eternal will not feature microtransactions or loot boxes of any type. Everything in the game will be available for free, although there will be some cosmetic skins that you can purchase using XP points. You earn these XP points as you progress in the game, so even the cosmetics don't require you to pull out your credit card. Martin also confirmed that you can completely ignore the skins and it will not have any effect on your gameplay.
“No store. Nothing [you] can unlock in [Eternal] with XP has anything to do with player abilities or content that would impact your game in any way. The only thing [you] can unlock with XP is COSMETICS. These cosmetics have no impact on how [you] play, they just look cool," Martin wrote in a post on Facebook. "Eternal is a $60 game, not a free to play game or mobile game – we are giving [you] a complete experience with no store just like you’d expect. Unlocking skins with XP is a part of the experience if you care about that stuff or [you] can completely ignore it and it will have no impact on your experience AT ALL and it’s all free.”
It is also confirmed that Doom Eternal will not have any paid multiplayer expansion packs like its predecessor. Although we should keep in mind that 2016’s Doom expansions were later made available for free. Removing paid multiplayer expansions was definitely a smart move by Id Software as it unnecessarily divided the player base.
Doom Eternal is one of the very few games to ditch not only loot boxes, but microtransactions as well. A few other games that follow the example are Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.
It seems like video game publishers are slowly walking away from all the anti-consumer monetization schemes that have generated several controversies over the years. Or it could be that these games are just outliers. Only time will tell.
