Apex Legends crafting metal: What does it do and how do you earn it?

Apex Legends crafting metal is one of the key aspects of the game that anyone playing regularly will be striving to earn more of, but as it's one of three types of currency, it can get a little confusing. Crafting Metal in Apex Legends exists alongside Legend Tokens and Apex Coins, but they're used for different things – Tokens are used to unlock new playable characters, while Coins are for buying things in the in-game shop. Crafting Metal, on the other hand, is used to specifically unlock cosmetic items. But how exactly does it work and how do you earn more of it? This guide to Apex Legends crafting metal has all you need to know.

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How to earn Crafting Metal in Apex Legends

Technically, you can't buy Crafting Metal with Apex Coins, Legend Tokens or real money. The only way you can get more Crafting Metal is by opening Apex Packs, which are the small loot crate robots. Crafting Metal seems to drop very frequently from them though - for better or for worse - so the more Apex Packs you open, the more Crafting Metal you're going to accrue.

For the first 20 levels, every time you level up, you earn an Apex Pack. This means you can start earning Crafting Metal early on, but you'll quickly realise it's not enough. To unlock a single legendary item, you need to fork out 1,200 Crafting Metal. When you're only earning 15 Crafting Metal per common drop, you quickly realise it's one hell of a grind to even unlock one legendary.

What can you do with Crafting Metal?

As we mentioned above, Crafting Metal is spent on unlocking cosmetics. Head to the Legends tab of the lobby screen to look at all the cosmetics you can grab for your characters, while the Armory tab has everything to do with weapons. There's plenty to browse through, with approximately 1,880 cosmetic items in total. It's impossible to earn even half of the items in the game without spending real money, so make sure you spend your Crafting Metal wisely.

Of course, this may change in future with the start of Apex Legends season one and the upcoming battle pass in March, but at this early stage, you'll struggle to get all the cosmetics you want unless you get very lucky with your Apex Packs.

Are you looking to make some quick progress in the game? Then here's how to level up fast in Apex Legends.

Ford James

Give me a game and I will write every "how to" I possibly can or die trying. When I'm not knee-deep in a game to write guides on, you'll find me hurtling round the track in F1, flinging balls on my phone in Pokemon Go, pretending to know what I'm doing in Football Manager, or clicking on heads in Valorant.