Part of the appeal in Apex Legends is customizing the diverse variety of heroes available to play. The battle royale by Respawn Entertainment includes a vast amount of cosmetic items to personalize each character. But it looks like a recent glitch is wiping entire collections from accounts in Apex Legends.
Typically speaking, players will unlock cosmetic items by playing the game and earning Apex Packs. Since these loot boxes can drop items at random, there is also the option to purchase them for actual money. Based on recent studies about loot boxes, plenty of fans buy these add-ons as well as earning in game. So losing these cosmetic unlocks permanently can essentially mean a lot of money wasted.
This new glitch seems to occur when players are prompted to login to their account again to play. The reasoning suggests that doing this will make the account more secure, but the immediate result is a cosmetic collection wipe. This includes everything from a character's basic unlocks to rare heirlooms in Apex Legends. For this particular fan, this meant around $2,000 lost by simply logging into the account again.
Lost 6 Heirlooms and 2000 dollars because my EA Account is somehow different
by u/Vlhv in apexlegends
To make matters worse, it sounds like there is no current solution to getting these items back. From the Reddit post, user Vlhv describes the methods taken to try to have this problem reversed. Microsoft does not offer a refund for the lost goods, and contacting EA directly resulted in a dead end too. Based on the Terms and Conditions, unlinking an account means losing in-game progress. What is especially strange is that the new account still has the same player level and rank.
Of all the glitches that can appear in a multiplayer game, one that deletes progress or items is pretty bad. This is not something that is necessarily random either, as the login prompt caused it. In many cases, players will choose to login again to make the account more secure. While this example mentioned $2,000 spent, there are likely fans who have dumped a lot more into loot crates for Apex Legends. The fact that EA is denying assistance because of a minor stipulation seems questionable at best.
That said, as of right now this is the primary example of the glitch occurring. There is the possibility that it is not specifically tied to the login prompt, but something to do with having multiple accounts. Plus, once Respawn catches onto this problem the team may be able to resolve it for the fan. Then again, bugs in Apex Legends have been appearing regularly so the developers could be preoccupied. For now, those playing the game will want to steer clear of the login prompt to avoid losing their entire collection.
Apex Legends is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.