We like competitive games because they’re challenging and, at times, rewarding. But we also like competitive games because we like showing off. And lost in the midst of all the new additions to Apex Legends coming in season 17 announced on May 1 was how Respawn “fumbled” the addition of the new weapon mastery system.
Having a means of progression and proving your worth on a particular weapon is a welcome addition to Apex in and of itself. But the reward for doing so may make the entire grind pointless, as FaZe Clan’s Jev recently pointed out on his stream.
Paying close attention to the wording from Respawn when talking about weapon mastery, Jev noted that the exact phrase used by the developers to describe the big reward for fully completing a weapon in the game’s weapon mastery system was “a guaranteed Legendary skin” for the weapon, in addition to other cosmetics like banner frames, stat trackers, and badges.
A guaranteed Legendary skin, notably, does not mean that skin will be new or unique. And Jev, along with many other players, took serious issue with that.
“If I’m a longtime Apex player, and I’m a big, big fan, and I already have all these different Legendary skins and bundles, what is the point?” Jev asked his stream. “I understand the progression is there. That’s great, awesome … [but] you kind of invalidate the work of somebody that gets to level 100 by not having something unique there.”
Jev further noted that just tacking on an existing Legendary skin doesn’t do much for players even if they didn’t already own the skin in Apex since any other player could just buy the same skin for themselves. The system as it’s currently described seems completely unlike Call of Duty, where players can unlock a gold camo that proves to anyone watching them that they completed all challenges with that weapon and have effectively “mastered” it. With how the system in Apex seems to work, players won’t get that same satisfaction. They might just get a skin that some other player used 1,200 Crafting Metals to unlock.
Related: Apexās ranked mode undergoing āfoundational shiftā in season 17
The banner frames and other cosmetics mentioned by Respawn in its blog post seem to be unique ones created for the weapon mastery system, but players just don’t care about banner frames and badges the same way they do about skins for characters and guns. There’s a reason why the highest rarity and most expensive items in a collection event are usually all legend and weapon skins: They’re the ones people actually spend money on.
If the weapon skin awarded to players upon completing 100 levels of a weapon is indeed just an existing Legendary skin in Apex, it will be a serious disappointment for players and make weapon mastery only attractive to the most hardcore of completionists.
We want to win a game of Apex, sure. But we also want to look cool doing it.
