Just over a year after its initial Early Access release, weapon skins have been deployed in Playerunknown's Battlegrounds.

The rollout was announced via a blog post on the title's Steam page, which explains the various ways by which users can acquire said cosmetic items.

Two new crates are being introduced alongside these. The Triumph Crate is a paid microtransaction, with a 20 per cent drop rate for a weapon skin, while the Raider Crate is free with a 100 per cent drop rate.

Weapon skins will also be available in the existing Surviver, Wanderer, Desperado and Fever crates - each with a 10 per cent drop - with there being a 20 per cent drop rate for the Biker and Militia Crates.

The fact that some weapon skins are paid items, and therefore have tradable value, will surely be a sore point with members of the community. Many accounts - mostly Chinese - are employing hacks such as aimbots to give them an unfair advantage in the game. This is so that they gain battle points faster which yields more crates.

The items in these crates can then be sold for profit. Giving in-game items real-world value while cheating still persists isn't great for optics. 

This is a large reason why cheating is so prevalent in the battle royale behemoth, something that developer and publisher PUBG Corp is struggling to handle. The company has put a real focus on halting foul play, but doing so has in fact slowed down development of new game content.

I for one can't wait to be gunned down from a billion miles away by an edgy 12-year-old using a Kar89k with a 'Weed Rulez' skin and feel that this will really enhance what is essentially the gameplay formula equivalent of crack cocaine.