The quintessential guide to Apex Legends currencies

Apex Legends is among the most popular live service games in the industry. Players around the world invest hours into Apex Legends content every season. The game competes with other popular battle royales and multiplayer shooters out there like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone.

Needless to say, such games tend to be lucrative for their publishers thanks to microtransactions, in-game currencies, and loads of unlockable content. Apex Legends is no stranger to such content, either. There are four main types of currencies in Apex Legends, including Crafting Materials, Legend Tokens, Apex Coins, and Heirloom Shards. Every currency unlocks different kinds of content as well.

Crafting Materials are the most basic in-game currency in Apex Legends. These can be used to unlock everything in the game except for exclusive store items which can only be unlocked using Apex Coins. Players can acquire Crafting Materials from Apex Packs. These Apex Packs are either free and can be earned during collection events or through profile and leveling up the battle pass. Players can even purchase them from the store. However, it's worth noting that Apex Packs don't guarantee Crafting Materials.

Here's how many Crafting Materials you can get from each tier in an Apex Pack.

The rarest unlockable cosmetics in Apex Legends require 1,200 Crafting Materials, and in case of timed exclusives, 2,400 Crafting Materials.

Players can use Crafting Materials to unlock cosmetics for each legend or weapon. The rarer the cosmetic, the more materials it'll require to craft.

Here's a breakdown of how many Crafting Materials it takes to craft in-game cosmetics:

Legend Tokens are entirely free to obtain in Apex Legends. Players can earn them by leveling up their profile. Every level gained rewards players with 600 Legend Tokens. Every locked legend costs 12,000 Legend Tokens. An important point to note is that every new legend released into the game is locked by default and will require Legend Tokens to unlock. The game levels up your profile quite liberally as long as you keep playing it. Veterans who have been around for five seasons or more will have amassed plenty of Legend Tokens to unlock the latest legend immediately.

In addition to locked legends, Legend Tokens also unlock weapon and legend skin recolors. Provided, of course, that the original skin is in the player's inventory. If it isn't, they'll have to go the traditional route and buy the skin using Apex Coins.

Players can also reroll daily battle pass challenges using Legend Tokens. Completing these challenges allows players to level up their battle pass by earning stars toward completion.

Here's how many Legend Tokens players will need to reroll daily challenges:

As with almost every live service game, there's an in-game currency that can only be obtained using real money. For Apex Legends, that currency is Apex Coins. Players can purchase Apex Coins from the store directly or level-up their premium battle pass to earn them as a reward.

A premium battle pass requires Apex Coins to purchase. So essentially, you're going to have to pay money to get Apex Coins in Apex Legends. Like Crafting Materials, Apex Coins provide access to almost all types of in-game content with the exception of Heirloom Shards. Well, technically, players can acquire Heirloom Shards by purchasing enough Apex Packs using Apex Coins.

Players can also purchase exclusive items from collection events using Apex Coins. Collection Events are in-game for a limited time. Mid-season collection events usually feature access to newly-released heirlooms. In order to unlock these heirlooms, players need to acquire every item from the collection event. Essentially, this means players need to spend Apex Coins to acquire the latest heirloom.

Another useful action Apex Legends players can perform using Apex Coins is gifting. Apex Legends added gifting in Season 15, allowing players to spend their Apex Coins on gifts for their friends.

Heirloom Shards are by far the most difficult currency to obtain in Apex Legends — and for good reason. Players can only obtain Heirloom Shards from Apex Packs. Though, the chances of obtaining a set of Heirloom Shards from Apex Packs are so low that even whales may think twice before spending that much on them. While there are a few lucky players who unlock Heirloom Shards as early as their second Apex Pack, more often than not, regular players need to open at least 500 of them to unlock them. The only other way to unlock heirlooms in this game is through the collection event, and even that involves spending a lot of money on Apex Coins to complete the collection.

Heirloom Shards unlock prestige skins and heirloom cosmetics in Apex Legends. Heirlooms are melee weapons with unique animations. Each heirloom is specific to a legend in the game and linked to their lore. Additionally, players can unlock prestige skins using Heirloom Shards. Players can level up each prestige skin they own to unlock more unique looks and animations for its legend.

Between Crafting Materials, Legend Tokens, Apex Coins and Heirloom Shards, Apex Legends features plenty of options in terms of in-game currencies.

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