Apex Legends’ holiday Twitch drops of old skins are here—and the players who bought them aren’t happy

It’s the holiday season, and over the week encompassing Christmas, part of Hanukkah, and several other winter holidays, Apex Legends is giving away old skins as Twitch drops that players can earn by watching their favorite streamer. Some players aren’t happy about it, however.

The Twitch drop move is a nice one for most players as well as streamers. Players get the chance to earn a bunch of free cosmetics just by doing something they probably would’ve already done: watch Twitch. At the same time, the move serves to give a little boost to the Apex content creator community over the holidays since every streamer on Twitch in the Apex category will have drops enabled on their stream, no matter how big or small that streamer is. The problem isn’t about having Twitch drops, however. It’s about what’s being given away in those Twitch drops.

While most of the skins being given away were old Twitch drops and were free for players to unlock in their original run, that’s not the case for all the skins on offer. A couple of skins in the holiday Twitch drops are former event skins. This is the case for the “Cult Classic” Devotion skin being given out, which was originally available for players to purchase as a store offering during season five’s Lost Treasures event, as well as the “Tribal Glyph” RE-45 skin, also a store sale during the Lost Treasures event.

The issue is that these are skins that players paid to unlock when they first arrived. Now, some of those players are asking for refunds after seeing their purchases being given away for free.

It’s a sticky situation for Respawn, but also one of its own doing. The skins in question are only Rare, the second-most common rarity of cosmetics in the game. And there’s been so much time since they were event items that they probably can’t be sold for Apex Coins at this point, between the low rarity and their age. At the same time, these skins were put into Apex as content that wasn’t free, and the decision to give them away as Twitch drops certainly devalues them for players who forked over real money for the skins previously.

While the winter holidays might be all about giving, many people think that these Twitch drops are another example of Apex taking. And after a winter event that already saw fans crying foul over recolors of old Legendary skins being sold for full price as event items and a recycled Winter Express LTM, it doesn’t seem like the community unrest with Apex’s cosmetic decisions is slowing down anytime soon.