The new and rising Apex Legends is a battle royal game with many cosmetic unlockable items, there are outfits for character and animations for special events and of course many others as well. To get these items you could either buy loot boxes with real money or earn them as the award for in-game achievement. We wrote this article to help explain to you how the whole microtransaction system works.
How much the game costs?
Apex Legends follows the free-2-play model so the game will be free with eight unlocked characters up front. To get the two last characters Holographic Trickster Mirage and Toxic Trapper Caustic you will have to either spend 12,000 legend tokens, the game's currency or spend 15 dollars for 2 characters.
The other microtransactions
Aside from the payment for the pair, all the other microtransactions in the game revolve around loot boxes which are in this game called Apex packs, in these packs you could find items or material for crafting, in this game is called Crafting Metals which is used to unlock items. And for the items, we could list them as follow: banners, poses, quips, weapon skins, finishers, and character skins. All these items will be categorized base on their rarity into legendary, epic, rare or common.
The amount of Crafting Metals it costs to unlock an item will be based on their rarity. The loot boxes will all include three items with the odds as follow:
- Legendary item: 7.4%
- Epic or more: 24.8%
- Rare or more: 100%
Leveling up from the bottom to the cap of level 100 you will earn to a maximum of 45 loot boxes then you will have purchase loot boxes with real money.
How much do the microtransactions cost?
This is a hard question. Mainly because there are three currencies in the game: Apex Coins, Crafting Metals and Legend Tokens and they all function separately. All the items in the game will need to be unlocked by using Crafting Metals but to earn Crafting Metals you must open loot boxes. To earn loot boxes you could either participate in competitive matches or purchase them using Apex Coins for 100 coins each which is about 1 dollar in real money.
One special point about loot boxes in Apex Legends is that they don't drop duplicate items, and the more boxes you open the more likely the drop will be of legendary rank. For every 30 loot boxes you will be guaranteed to receive a Legendary item and the odds of the rarity level of the drops will be displayed before you open the box.
Could I not spend real money but still get all the items?
Nope is the short answer since you could only earn up to 45 loot boxes by playing the game. Moreover, it is very hard to know how long it takes to get to level 100 and earn all of these 45 loot boxes.
Just an example, to unlock all the 4 legendary skins of Bloodhound you would need 4800 Crafting Metals. Even in the case that you get a stack of rare Crafting Metals in each loot box you open, it would still be 160 loot boxes you need in this case. The alternative way is to buy the Pathfinder’s Legendary Angel City Pacer skin Apex Legends store for 18$ which is 1,800 Apex coins
Is there any way to earn Apex coins through playing the game?
The premium coin in the game could only be purchased using real money so the answer is NO.
Is the gameplay impacted by the microtransactions
Absolutely not. The microtransactions purely for the cosmetic reason. They are meant to be for the decoration layer of the game so the microtransaction will not affect the gameplay.
Other?
Just like other battle royale games, there will be soon a pass for the seasonal battle for Apex Legends in March. While we still have to know how much will it cost since EA hasn't released the price yet. However, we know that together with this pass there will be cosmetic and decoration items for the players. The season will probably last for around three months.
These days battle passes have become ever more popular as an alternative to the random loot boxes. In place of the randomness of the loot boxes, with battle passes you will pay a certain amount up-front a will be guaranteed rewards as you grind.