Hacking skins with HxD

False. It's possible. Only in the lobby.

You're right but even if you do it in the lobby I'm sure there is a high risk of it (Getting banned).

Being that it is only in the lobby it's really not worth it at all. Especially if the people in the lobby are not able to see it.

As far as I'm concerned I haven't been able to figure out the method people are doing but there's two main ways I know that are possible

This is only done by leakers to make their leaks look more legit, showing them in-game show people "Oh, well it's in the game so yeah im excited for it to be released"

- Hex Editing pak files and replacing Emotes/Skins with desired emotes/skins (This can't trigger a ban unless you fuck up real badly or change the file size by adding rather than changing.

- Unpacking pak files and injecting into them (I have no clue how this is done but injecting probably isn't the right word, but this method makes the game thinks the skin/emote is INSIDE your inventory.) This can cause a ban but you can bypass EAC by exploiting its framework and whitelisting any changes made to the pak files. (Again, I don't know how this is done)

And yes, other people in the lobby can see it. (However with the first method I believe it'd take a lot more work)

As for the Anti-Cheat thing you mentioned, BattleEye and EAC are both pinged everytime you launch the game successfully, including when it fails to launch. I personally haven't had a failed launch so they don't have anything go off of. The only thing they can scan is if the pak files were tampered with, and this only happens if the file size is changed or you brutally fucked something up in the process. You are required to keep the file size the same, otherwise, you risk being banned.
Regardless of this, I use an EAC bypass that whitelists the changes I make to the pak files, allowing me to change the file size without a failed launch. (This was given to me yesterday)

And as for other players not seeing unreleased items, I'll post a video showing that they can in a few minutes.

- - - Updated - - -

i found out how to do it using HxD but after a lottttt of testing i couldn't manage to make the item stay in my inventory after i changed it (i mean after i changed it if i view it in the battle-pass or the store it was different but it just disappear from my inventory so i could try and equipe it)

Then you are doing it entirely wrong, don't DM me about it.
And I'd recommend you to stop, it's bound to get patched and eventually EPIC is going to make pak files read only.

Lol kk :P also i think i found the problem which was i also changed the item id so i didnt count as an item i have in my inventory so i found the problem thank you anyway

No, this wouldn't even be close to preventing a ban. Every time you have a successful or failed launch, the servers are pinged, and the Anti-Cheat logs it. If you get a failed launch for constantly tampering with pak files, you will be flagged.

I would assume that this theory is correct as you said, it runs "via virtual drive files".

That doesn't prevent EAC/BattleEye from banning you. 2-3 years ago, it would've prevented it.