The highlights of each Apex Legends event are always the new legend and weapon skins, but many never return to the shop after their initial store run. Respawn now gives players a chance at acquiring these limited time items with their newest shop page.
The official PlayApex account announced the start of the new Hot Drops store tab, a new personalized store that features different items for every single player. Upon launching Apex, players can find Hot Drops as the very first store tab, where they must click the five banners to reveal their specialized deals.
According to dataminers, Hot Drops store options are based on each account’s missing items, with a higher chance of getting skins and items for the top three most played legends and weapons with the highest kill rate on the account’s match history. Hot Drops guarantee one Epic level rarity option, and four Legendary skins or bundles, allowing players to potentially get limited-time seasonal skins they missed in their initial store run.
Social media reactions to Hot Drops has been met with mixed reviews. The biggest sources of praise come from the high discounts offered for the skin bundles, which can be as high as 65 percent, the highest store discounts offered in any Apex event—even though not every Hot Drop option will receive the same discount value.
This well-priced deal comes directly after the store complaints of the Final Fantasy Rebirth Takeover, where collectors could spend up to $360 for the Buster Sword R5, the most expensive Heirloom to date if a player was unlucky and had to resort to buying the entire store collection for the guaranteed drop, despite the initial 15 pack discount pricing.
However, the rollout for Hot Drop has not been flawless, with lots of social media users posting that their shop page does not feature the new tab, despite the client’s news advertising the feature. Clicking on the news tab redirects players to the standard store page, instead of giving access to Hot Drops.
The biggest criticisms for the Hot Drops store comes in the lack of purchasable content, and transparency in skin selection. Many players have reported only getting one deal for one of their top three legends or weapons, uncovering two of the same exact bundle in their shop, or not receiving any special personalized deals at all. Additionally, players purchasing any of the five items or bundles will be disappointed to learn that none of the store options will refresh, and that the entire store event only contains the five skin or bundle options.
League of Legends’ Your Shop and VALORANT’s Night Market both offer six customized options, with League directly stating their algorithm tracks the past six months of each player’s match history to determine which specific Champions and skins make it into the specialized shops.
Apex’s Hot Drops will last for two weeks, ending its first run on Feb. 6 for all platforms. If Respawn follows the example of other games’ personalized shops, Hot Drops will certainly return with a new set of deals at a later date.
