Apex Legends players still want Gold Shield swaps to be changed

Alan Bernal

Apex Legends players want a simple quality of life option in the battle royale that will let them instantly pick up items like Gold Shields to avoid crucial blunders in the game.

As it is, there’s a small delay in picking up some items, notably on consoles. But players are finding inconsistencies in the delay and it’s causing some frustrations, especially when it slows you in pivotal fights that could decide a match.

That’s what happened to user ‘Punyr’ who wants to add a ‘tap’ option for Gold Shields found in death boxes and the like.

In his clip, the game is down to the last three squads alive in the Duos lobby. The player is navigating around multiple people and even eliminates a team to narrow it down to only two factions.

But the battle left Punyr with low shields. When they went to the death box of the person they had just killed to pick up a fresh Gold Shield, they didn’t anticipate the ‘Hold A’ prompt to switch out the armor.

This had them scrambling back to the box to locate and hold the button in order to swap shields. By that time, the remaining opponent found an opening to take out Punyr and end the game.

“Aw man you had it as well,” another user said. “Yeah I don’t know why the game does this, no matter whether it’s purple or red it seems to think the gold shield is lesser for some reason.”

(Timestamp at 20:04 for mobile viewers)

Other players pointed at a similar situation that happened in Game 7 of the ALGS Championship final circle where Cloud9’s knoqd can be seen trying to salvage armor but can’t in time.

While there’s speculation as to why the game makes you hold the button to pick up the item, players still want a simple option to insta-swap shields.

An option like that in Apex Legends could cut down on the ambiguity of what gets insta-grabbed and save players from having to fiddle with death boxes in the worst moments.

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About The Author

Alan is a former staff writer for Dexerto based in Southern California who covered esports, internet culture, and the broader games/streaming industry. He is a CSUF Alum with a B.A. in Journalism. He's reported on sports medicine, emerging technology, and local community issues. Got a tip or want to talk?