Battle Pass Exclusivity will soon be a thing of the past In Fourteen daysas Epic Games has confirmed that items released in future Battle Passes may appear in the Item Shop at a later date. While the response to this has been generally positive, fans are still holding out hope that things could one day go a step further.
Previously, cosmetics released in Battle Passes were only available if you unlocked them during the season. This means that many skins and emotes are no longer available if you weren’t playing at the time. This is especially frustrating considering how many major collaboration skins have been released this way – Spider-Man, Geralt, Eren Jaeger, Darth Vader, The Mandalorian… the list goes on. The good news is that this may not be such a big problem in the future, but the fact remains that all of those old, highly coveted skins are still lost to the exclusivity loophole.
“It should have been ALL Battle Passes, not just future ones,” says one player. answerg commented on the news on Reddit. “Hopefully they see how much support this move is getting and bring the rest back.”
“A good first step, but not what people asked for,” said another agrees. “It ignores the people who want the old Battle Pass content. That’s great for the future, but the old content is still locked, which is something nobody suggested.”
“This should actually also apply to old passports,” adds another.
At this point, Epic Games hasn’t said anything to suggest this could happen, although due to a bug yesterday (coincidentally before the Battle Pass changes were announced) an exclusive, limited-time skin that was first sold in the Item Shop nearly five years ago has temporarily returned. Epic was quick to pull the skin from the store, saying that anyone who bought it in that short time would get their money back and the skin would be removed from their account. However, the developer soon backtracked and is letting the lucky few keep it, while old buyers will be given a new variant of the skin at some point in the future.
Needless to say, there’s a lot of pressure on Epic to do away with exclusive cosmetic items altogether so that everyone can get their hands on their favorites, regardless of when they started playing. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but the change, which will take effect starting next season, is certainly a good start.
Be sure to check out our list of best Battle Royale games for other games like Fortnite.
