Heirloom melee weapons are one of the coveted cosmetic item types in Apex Legends. Heirlooms, while they don’t add any damage, give a Legend a unique melee weapon and a set of new action animations when you play them with no weapon in hand. While not every Legend has an heirloom yet, all of the original eight Legends, plus Octane, the Season 1: Wild Frontier Legend, currently have theirs. It is expected that Legends added to the game in other seasons will start getting their soon any future Collection Events that may happen going forward.
While historically, there have been other ways to earn them, currently, Heirlooms can be earned in two ways. You can unlock them directly when they are first released by buying out all 24 items in a Collection Event, or after their event has ended, you can unlock them with Heirloom Shards from the Heirloom Store. The store holds all past heirlooms in the game.