Apex Legends players find trick to swap loot boxes for crafting metals

Hit battle royale game Apex Legends is free to download and play, but there are elements of the game that can be purchased using digital coins first bought using real world money. You don't have to buy these items, though — the game also offers random loot boxes that sometimes contain crafting metals, which are then used to unlock skins, quips, and other non-essentials. Thanks to a Reddit post, players have figured out a way to swap their Battle Pass loot boxes for crafting metals.

Though loot boxes sometimes offer crafting metals, it doesn't happen often and the amounts offered are usually low. It takes around 1,200 crafting metals to unlock a single Legendary skin, which means players need to spend a lot of time grinding in rounds to eventually amass enough crafting metals for an unlock.

The big exception here is Belgium, where players aren't offered loot boxes due to a law passed in 2018. In the boxes' place, Respawn gives the players crafting metals, and they come in more substantial sums than what you usually get from loot boxes. This difference was recently highlighted in a post on Reddit.

The news caught the attention of some players who then decided to see if they could get the same benefit by changing their region to Belgium. Spoiler alert: it works for almost everyone. Within a matter of hours, player Mernerak published a video detailing how Battle Pass owners can switch their game region to Belgium for crafting metals instead of loot boxes.

The big benefit here is obvious: rather than getting random, often low-value skins that would otherwise require crafting metals, players get the crafting metals and can spend them directly. This enables players to get the items they want rather than being forced to accept whatever random thing is offered in the loot box.