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Apex Legends event disappoints with “$170 recolour” Peacekeeper skin

The Apex Legends Celestial Sunrise collection event offers plenty of new skins for the battle royale game, but its most expensive reward leaves players wanting.

Apex Legends - Caustic's red and gold Lion Guard legendary skin

The Apex Legends Celestial Sunrise event adds a whole wealth of stylish new seasonal skins for players to collect in celebration of the Lunar New Year, along with the introduction of the “ultimate test” for the determined in the form of Apex Legends Hardcore Royale. However, fans of one of the best battle royale games have been left severely underwhelmed by the event’s most elusive reward.

As a special bonus for players who unlock all the time-limited cosmetics from a given collection event, Respawn offers an extra reward – typically coming in the form of the mythic-tier Prestige skins and Apex Legends Heirlooms. For example, the recent Spellbound collection event offered a Seer Heirloom, Showstoppers, while the previous Wintertide collection event rewarded the Wraith Voidshifter Prestige skin.

The Celestial Sunrise prize, however, is a legendary Peacekeeper skin called Jadeite Retribution. It’s undeniably very cool – sporting a crimson red frame with golden trim and sparkling jade crystals jutting out from the barrel and stock. It’s also reactive, meaning it’ll respond when you score kills. However, it bears a striking resemblance to two past skins, Frostbite and Blood Stone, which were included as part of the season three battle pass.

Apex Legends Jadeite Retribution skin - comparison with Frostbite and Blood Stone skins

Players on the Apex Legends Reddit are discussing how they feel about the skin, and there’s definitely a strong sentiment that, as nice as the skin looks, it feels like a disappointing reward for ‘completing’ the collection event. This is especially true as some players are likely to spend up to an estimated $170 USD (or around £136 GBP) to unlock the full set of cosmetics without using crafting materials.

Of course, it’s important to note that this skin is merely the cherry on top of the cosmetic cake – in spending your money or crafting materials, you also get yourself twelve legendries and twelve epics along with the Jadeite Retribution skin. You’d also have spent roughly the same amount had you bought the season three battle pass and paid to level it up to max for the old skins, though you could also have leveled it simply by playing after your initial investment.

Ultimately, only you as a player can decide which Apex Legends skins and other cosmetic items are worth your time or monetary investment – but offerings like this seem to be putting some players off their spending habits. “I know we all spend money [on Apex cosmetics],” one commenter says, “but we should all start spending a little bit less IMO.”

As we prepare for Apex Legends season 16, take a look at our Apex Legends tier list for the latest updates on who the strongest characters are right now. We’ve also got more of the best multiplayer games on PC if you just can’t get enough friendly competition.