All games with loot boxes in them will be rated minimum PEGI 16, starting this summer

PEGI has announced that all games with loot boxes in them will soon be rated 16 and up.

The European game ratings board announced today that starting in June it will be introducing a number of minimum age ratings for games with certain ‘interactive risk’ features.

Games with “paid random items” – generally described as loot boxes – will have a default rating of PEGI 16, meaning they can’t legally be sold to children 15 or under in the UK or any other European country which has adopted PEGI ratings into its legislation.

“In some cases, they can be a PEGI 18,” it adds, though it doesn’t specify which conditions trigger this.

When it comes to other in-game content, games with time-limited offers or quantity-limited offers will be classed as PEGI 12 at a minimum, while anything with NFTs or blockchain-related mechanisms will instantly be rated PEGI 18.

While features that reward players for returning to the game (such as daily quests) will only be rated PEGI 7 at a minimum, if players are punished for not return (such as losing content or slowing down their progress) these games will become PEGI 12.

Finally, if games with online communication features are entirely unrestricted – with no blocking or reporting ability, for example – they will automatically be rated PEGI 18.

The new rules will only apply to newly submitted games from June 2026 onwards, which means existing titles with loot boxes or any of the other above features won’t be getting new ratings.

The changes will affect the age ratings of some long-running series, most notably EA Sports FC. The latest game in the series is rated PEGI 3, but unless EA removes loot boxes from the Ultimate Team mode in EA Sports FC 27 – which almost certainly won’t happen given how much income it generates from them – it will instead be rated PEGI 16.

According to PEGI, the changes are being made to bring its standards in line with those of USK, the German age rating authority which made similar changes in 2023 after the German Youth Protection Act was updated.

“We are happy to find ourselves once again aligned with PEGI in addressing online interaction risks as soon as these changes are coming into effect,” USK managing director Elisabeth Secker said in a statement.

“For us, it has been a useful and successful change: at least one of the new USK criteria has been applied to approximately 30% of all games that were submitted since we updated our system. Around 1 in 3 of those games have been given a higher age rating as a result. The effect of the changes was visible and impactful.”

PEGI council chair Beate Våje added: “With the updated set of age rating criteria, PEGI aims to make parents aware that certain features in games should be carefully assessed, and that parental tools can be a very helpful assistant when doing that.”