The new gacha system in Tribe Nine has led to mostly negative reviews on Steam, with players feeling cheated
Tribe Nine’s gacha system makes F2P almost impossible. If you're thinking about investing your time but want to avoid spending cash, here’s what you need to know.
Tribe Nine, a free-to-play game, officially launched on February 19, 2025, but some players got early access through beta tests. Based on their feedback, the gacha system has been completely reworked, making it incredibly tough to enjoy without spending money.
Gacha trouble in Tribe Nine
The gacha system in most free-to-play RPGs tends to follow the same formula. The main goal is collecting characters, which requires spending in-game currency to pull them. Different games offer various ways to earn this currency for free, usually through login bonuses, completing quests, or other in-game activities.
However, in Tribe Nine, it seems like there’s no real way to pull new characters without spending actual money. Here's what players are saying:
One of the worst cases of bait and switch that I have ever seen. Almost all f2p rewards that were part of the game during beta are gone. More than 90% of the f2p currency is gone. Everything from dailies, treasure chests, and achievements is less than 5% of what you got before, and the one time quests are the same way…
…Even if you're comfortable spending money on the abysmal 0.3% gacha rate, the conversion for gems is extremely predatory.
- Castiel
Free currency is at this point in time pretty much non-existent, and with painfully low 0.3% 3 star rates on the gacha, it will be near impossible for free to play players to earn any new characters in the future.
- Kenitix
Top-tier rewards usually have low drop rates, but 0.3% for 3-star characters is pretty brutal. And if there’s barely any free currency to pull them, like fans are saying, completing the roster becomes pretty much impossible. These changes have left some players feeling like exploration just isn’t worth it right now.
The biggest thing for me is that the removal of banner currency from treasure chests removes most of the fun from exploring. There's no satisfaction from finding secret chests or doing tricky puzzles now.
- T-Loc
As expected, the game got hit with negative reviews right after launch. Right now, most players are just saying to forget about collecting characters and focus on enjoying the main story instead. Hopefully, Akatsuki Games will take the feedback seriously and make some changes to the gacha system.
