The Heirloom Collection is Straight Up Bad

During Tennocon, we were shown two new skins, one for Frost and one for Mag. These skins were really nice and came with a new type of accessory, a halo. However, we soon found out that these skins were cash only, and were filled with other items to pad out the price. The community wasn’t too happy.

Now, we’ve had expensive items before. Prime Access, instant access to new Primed Warframes and weapons, is incredibly expensive. And if you wanted the Primed Accessories to go with your new Warframes, you’d have to buy the full Prime Access, which could easily bring total costs close to (or, occasionally over) €100 euros. That’s a lot of money considering that you can unlock the Warframes and weapons for free. However, in recent years, the packs have been split up slightly, so you can at least buy the Prime Accessories as their own, separate option. After all, it’s the cosmetics that we really want. Prime Access though is notoriously expensive. The Prime Accessories alone cost €45, and the full Wisp Prime bundle costs a staggering €125. It’s too much for me, my pockets are rather empty currently.

The Hierloom collection does something similar. Its a premium pack where you get two skins, two halos, some glyphs and emotes and a colour pack. You also get 600 Platinum and 6 Regal Aya. You don’t get any guns or Warframes in this pack though, it’s all cosmetic. And it costs €81 to buy. €81 is a lot of money, especially for two skins. We already got super pissed off at Overwatch 2 for its insanely expensive skins, and seeing this price for just the two skins is insane.

Honestly, the price isn’t really the big thing that bothers me. Prime Access has always been stupidly expensive, and DE launching a cosmetics-only equivalent isn’t exactly a bad idea. I’m surprised they didn’t do it sooner. And the fact that these skins will disappear after a few months doesn’t bother me either, because I just never buy Prime Access stuff. It’s a lot of money and I simply can’t afford it. So I simply don’t buy it.

However, there are two things that do bother me. It would have been nice to be able to buy these cosmetics with Platinum. Even if it was a lot of Platinum, I’d happily save up a ton of plat and buy the skins. That’s not really going to happen though. The bigger issue is that, even if you can afford the pack, you have to buy the whole damn thing. You can’t just buy Frost or Mag, you can’t skip out on the glyph and colour pack that bloat the package and you can’t opt out from getting the platinum and regal aya, which were added to give the pack more artificial value. €81 is a lot to spend on two skins, but if I could buy one or the other for, I don’t know, €30, I’d actually consider it. I don’t want the Mag skin, I just want the Frost skin. There are no options outside of buying the entire pack. Prime Access already has multiple packs you can choose from, why can’t the Heirloom collection be the same?

What also worries me is that this will be a recurring theme. Two skins and a load of extras shoved into a bundle that costs a lot of money. Because people ARE buying this pack. The last time I idled on Fortuna 69, I saw people wearing the skins. They are cool skins, definitely, but I feel that this bundle is a tad predatory, far more so than Prime Access is, simply because Prime Access has some choice in it. Because of this, I won’t be buying the Hierloom collection.

Then again, I don’t buy Prime Access either, so it’s all kinda moot. Still, I’d love to be able to just buy the Frost skin.