It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone that the immense popularity of EA and Respawn’s free to play battle royale Apex Legends has inspired a wave of unofficial merchandise – some of it genuinely cool, some of it less so.
Thanks to the magic (or I guess science) of 3D printing technology, life-sized replica guns from the game are starting to spring up on sites like Etsy – the blackest of markets, I’m sure we can agree.
While I don’t personally know of anyone who’d want an unofficial replica of a gun from a free to play battle royale, I’ve no doubt there is an audience for it. This kind of thing must be huge among cosplayers, for example, and a lot of them do look pretty awesome.
As you’d expect, these independently-made weapons come with a fairly hefty – but not unreasonable – price tag. The Peacekeeper above would set you back $87, while the Mozambique pictured below is $104 (via PCGamer).
A lot of sellers are even willing to go the extra mile and create a custom paint job just for you, putting together patterns and colours that match in-game skins. 3DWorkshopCreation, are one example of an unofficial online store who clearly know exactly how to market to cosplayers.
Their work includes replicas of gear from all manner of games, including Overwatch, Fortnite, and World of Warcraft. If I were a cosplayer without the time, skill, and implication to make my own props, I imagine sites like this are a real boon.
Starjeff 3D Workshop, who made the Mozambique you can see above, are another place any budding cosplayers with money to spend should probably check out. Their replica weapons are really pretty slick, with a number of weapons from Apex Legends, as well as some gear from Titanfall and Mass Effect.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.