The addition of loot boxes in full-priced single player games has become an increasingly popular trend amongst developers, but tenacious PC gamers have found a way around the loot boxes in Middle-earth: Shadow of War. A simple exploit allows players to get as many as they want for no cost.
Monolith Productions decided to jump on the trend of loot boxes containing loot and resources, reducing the grind of the game, but many gamers have voiced their complaints about this practice where they either have to grind the in-game currency Miriam or purchase gold for real cash money. Just like in Jurrasic Park, life finds a way and an exploit to circumvent this has been discovered. By using scripts from Cheat Engine players can give themselves unlimited Mirian and with those players can buy the silver tier loot boxes, giving themselves more uruks and gear they can dream of.
To be clear, this exploits nets players none premium currency and the lower tier loot boxes, this does not reward players with legendary uruks or gear but it still makes assembling a formidable army for the final parts of the game easier, especially since the true ending is hidden behind a massive grind, something that's also caused more negative reviews to surface on Steam.
Using third-party tools such as Cheat Engine to change game files was a common practice before everything had to be online all the time and before microtransactions took hold. So it's an interesting cheat or exploit since it closes down the loot box market in Shadow of War without actually stealing any premium currency or flooding the market with it but instead giving unlimited regular currency, also a common cheat back in the day. Loot boxes in a singleplayer game seems a bit odd and this basically removes them or at least lowers the value of the premium boxes.
Then there is a question of ethics. Is it stealing from Monolith Productions? Is it a means of unlocking the true ending that's been cleverly hidden behind long hours of grinding if players don't want to pay for premium loot boxes? Or is it just a modern version of Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A? It's a question worth thinking about. But before anyone starts cheating, we at GameZone don't condone any illegal changes to game files, and Epic Games recently sued cheaters for copyright infringement and WB might very well follow in their footsteps.
