Cosmetics are the ultimate way to flex on your opponents after you show them your superiority by wiping their whole team. In Apex Legends, there’s one special item that is the end all, be all in the realm of cosmetics and that’s the Heirlooms. If you’re new to Apex Legends, there is a fast way and a slow way to nab your first set of Heirloom Shards, but it’s going to cost you.
What are Heirloom Shards?
Heirloom Shards are a unique and rare currency used to buy the most coveted cosmetics in Apex Legends.
When Apex Legends first launched, the developers added Wraith’s Kunai, the first of the Heirlooms. They did so secretly without telling anyone, so it was a big deal when someone opened a loot tick and found Mythic level rarity items for Wraith.
The Heirloom pack came with the Wraith Kunai, a special melee weapon that gets taken out whenever you stow your weapons, a banner pose and a special voice line. Eventually, as Respawn Entertainment started to add more Heirlooms, the packs were replaced with Heirloom Shards so you could choose which Heirloom you wanted.
At present, of the 23 Legends in the game, 16 of them have Heirloom weapons and three have Prestige Skins. The Weapons have gotten more intricate and special, with each new addition featuring various animations and hidden Easter eggs. The Prestige Skins, which also cost Heirloom Shards, is a special skin that levels up and unlocks more variants of it as you deal damage with the appropriate hero. It also comes with a special finisher as well.
At their current rate, Apex Legends releases one new Heirloom per season and one Prestige skin.
How do I get Heirloom Shards?
As mentioned above, there are two ways to obtain Heirloom Shards in Apex Legends — the fast way and the slow way. The slow way is to just wait until you unbox them in a Loot Tick.
The odds of pulling an Heirloom Shard pick is 1 in 500 and it does have a mercy timer as well. So, if you can’t wait for a natural pull of your Heirloom Shards or you’re just extremely unlucky, you could always just buy 500 Apex Packs and open them until you’re guaranteed the shards.
The other surefire way to make sure you get the Heirloom you want is to wait for a Collection Event. The game holds a special two-week-long event whenever a new Heirloom Weapon or Prestige Skin is released. These Collection Events come with 24 new cosmetics (12 epics, 12 legendaries) and if you buy all 24 of them, you unlock the new Heirloom item as well.
During the past Anniversaries of Apex Legends, they’ve had Collection Events that grant the shards themselves so players can buy whatever Heirloom they have their eyes on.
This is also an expensive buy, usually coming in around $170 total if you don’t use your crafting materials to set off the cost or buy the bundles. But it is cheaper than buying 500 Apex packs and hoping you get lucky.
Tips for Getting Heirloom Shards
There’s not really a whole lot you can do to improve your chances, unfortunately. But here are a few tips to hopefully keep you sane while you wait and keep you from burning a hole in your pocket.
They can come from any type of rarity and can even come out of special event packs. But they don’t replace what is in the pack. For example, if you get Heirloom Shards out of a special Bloodhound-themed pack, the Bloodhound Pack will open itself again afteryou receive the Heirloom Shardsand you’ll still get those Bloodhound-themed items.
Since you’re guaranteed to get Heirloom Shards every 500 packs, you could also just count up your Apex packs to know how close you are to the next one. If you have good self-control, just save up your loot boxes until you have 500 and go crazy opening them.
You can also track your Apex Packs on some sites like this one. But keep in mind it doesn’t have a way of counting Apex Packs that you’ve bought from the store. You have to know where and what packs you got in previous seasons as well. So it’s probably not going to be 100% accurate unless you just started playing and can track it as you go.
