PEGI to Add Loot Box and Battle Pass Ratings Criteria Starting in 2026

EA Sports FC carries a PEGI 3 rating right now. Under rules announced last week, that could become PEGI 16 by summer, making the franchise one of the starkest illustrations of how dramatically Europe's game rating system is about to change.

PEGI announced the overhaul on March 18, introducing a framework that treats monetization and online mechanics as "interactive risks" capable of pushing a game's minimum age rating upward. The changes take effect in June 2026, with four additional classification categories arriving in July. For the first time, features like loot boxes, paid battle passes, and daily login streaks will influence the age label on a game's box, not just the content descriptors printed alongside it.

The new ratings map is precise. Games containing paid random items such as loot boxes will receive a default PEGI 16 rating, with some implementations potentially reaching PEGI 18. Time-limited or quantity-limited in-game purchases and paid battle passes land at PEGI 12. Games built around NFTs or blockchain mechanics receive PEGI 18. Play-by-appointment features like daily quests earn PEGI 7, but if those systems punish players for not returning, such as by deleting accumulated content, the rating climbs to PEGI 12. Any game that lacks tools for reporting or blocking other players online defaults to PEGI 18.

Dirk Bosmans, director of PEGI, said the organization had closely coordinated with Germany's USK, which implemented comparable changes in 2023. "We've actually worked together with USK quite closely to make sure that we once again realign," Bosmans told GamesIndustry.biz. Because USK already moved in 2023, PEGI's new rules do not apply to games released in Germany, which operates under USK's existing framework across PEGI's 38-country territory.

Bosmans also outlined how publishers can reduce their rating through mitigating factors. "If a game has in-game controls that put spending off by default, meaning that the parent actively needs to go into the game and turn spending on, so that normally a child when they're playing it, they cannot access any of these offers, then a game can have a PEGI 7," he said. PEGI noted that parental tools are already available across all platforms using its ratings, allowing limits on spending, online interaction, and playtime.

PEGI stated that "newly submitted games will be classified with a broader set of criteria that will focus on content and functionality, such as purchases of in-game content, paid random items, communication features, and features that incentivize players to continue playing," adding the change will "help bolster online safety and meet the concerns and questions of today's parents." Publishers are now required to submit additional information with classification requests, and PEGI expects the first games rated under the new criteria to be announced later this summer, given that titles are often submitted for classification before they are publicly revealed.

FC Ultimate Team, which generates significant revenue for EA through virtual card packs that function as loot boxes, sits at the center of the commercial stakes here. Whether EA builds in the spending-off-by-default parental controls that Bosmans described will likely determine whether FC 26 ships with a PEGI 12 or PEGI 16 on its cover. Fortnite, which already carries a PEGI 12 and uses multiple paid passes, appears positioned to clear the new bar without a rating change.

Emily Tofield, chief executive of the Young Gamers and Gamblers Education Trust (Ygam), called the announcement "a step in the right direction" but pressed for more. "Without applying the rules to current games the policy will do little to protect the children who are already playing them," Tofield said, calling for PEGI 18 to be applied retrospectively to existing titles. PEGI confirmed the new ratings apply only to games released after June, leaving millions of players on titles already in their libraries outside the scope of the new system. No UK legislation currently regulates how or where loot boxes appear in games, a gap that makes the PEGI classification shift the most concrete protective measure in place heading into the summer rollout.