Girls' Frontline 2 Goes Full Whale-Bait: New Version Dumps Skill-Locking Materials Into $68-$328 Packages — 'Even Gacha Games Don't Charge for Skill Unlocks'

Imagine this: a gacha game puts the materials needed to UNLOCK YOUR CHARACTER'S SKILLS behind paid packages. Skip the packages? Your shiny new 5-star is basically running with one leg.

Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium just dropped a flood of paid bundles in its latest version update, all packed with 'Core Origin Cores' — nicknamed 'Relics' (舍利子) by the community. These aren't optional stat boosts. They're mandatory consumables that unlock a character's passive skills (called 'Fixed Keys'), which define their entire combat identity.

Here's the grind math that's got everyone furious: Free players can earn a grand total of 3 Cores per month from weekly bosses. The battle pass adds 6 more. That's it — those are your only non-paying sources. Meanwhile, fully unlocking one 5-star character's skills costs 18 Cores (3 tiers × 6 each). This spawned the community meme of '6+6+6' — meaning you need to whale for character dupes, weapon dupes, AND skill materials to make a single character functional.

The new version's package lineup speaks for itself: Interview Gift Box (讯影) ¥168/≈$23 → 6 Cores; Interview Crate (讯影) ¥328/≈$45 → 12 Cores; Growth Supply Box (讯影) ¥68/≈$9 → 6 Cores; Interview Gift Box (巡境) ¥168 → 6 Cores; Interview Crate (巡境) ¥328 → 12 Cores; Growth Supply Box (巡境) ¥68 → 6 Cores; Spring Fortune Bag ¥198 → 3 Cores. Out of 7 new packages, only 2 don't contain skill-locked materials. The rest are stuffed with them.

The OP ranted: 'Truly galaxy-brained wisdom — this is the Chairman's latest post-holiday price hike plan. Lantern Festival? Everyone, max out your wallets!' The 'Chairman' (董事长) is a mocking nickname for the GFL series producer Yuzhong (羽中), and the post-holiday pricing jab mocks the studio's pattern of cranking up monetization around every festival.

The comment section went nuclear immediately. One player quipped: 'The total cost of these packages exceeds the game's famously thin text content' — a dig at the game's widely mocked lack of production value. Another top-voted comment wrote: 'Have we already fast-forwarded to the late-stage mobile game playbook of squeezing the IP's last drop of value through shameless cash grabs? Can we at least get the power-creep show where every new character outguns the last?'

The comparison that resonated the most? 'Even miHoYo doesn't dare charge players to unlock skills. This is straight-up deranged.' This comment got quoted and echoed repeatedly. One reply drove the point home: 'After seeing what Exilium does, Genshin Impact looks positively saintly by comparison.' When miHoYo — the studio the community has historically labeled as the gold standard for aggressive gacha monetization — becomes your COMPARISON POINT FOR GENEROSITY, you know you've crossed a line.

For those trying to downplay it as 'just a stat difference,' knowledgeable players set the record straight: the gap isn't about numbers — it's about core character functionality. Koerfu can't provide AoE healing without unlocking her key Fixed Key. SPAS's tank ranking drops significantly without her attack-to-stability-recovery passive. As one commenter explained: 'This is like the difference between Elite 1 and Elite 2 in Arknights — missing an entire passive and a passive upgrade. It's a hard breakpoint, not a soft nerf.'

One player raised the perfect question: 'Didn't someone claim Exilium already recouped costs and is rolling in profits? So why sell so many Core materials?' If the game's already profitable, the aggressive push for skill-material sales looks less like survival and more like pure greed. Another comment nailed it: 'Who says there's no production capacity? Look at all those packages they produced' — a razor-sharp summary of the game's notorious reputation for putting all its content dev effort into monetization.

The cherry on top came from the thread's most upvoted reply, dripping with sarcasm: 'These Cores are incredibly precious, you paypigs buy them first. Why won't you buy them? WHY WON'T YOU BUY THEM?' — perfectly channeling the devs' energy and capturing the collective sentiment: Do we look stupid to you?