Apex Legends is a free Battle Royale game that was released on February 4, 2019. Developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, this new take on the Battle Royale genre was released for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It surely delivered. Not only does it have great graphics and a diverse set of characters with unique in-game combat abilities, but it also has quite a few gameplay mechanics that other famous battle royale games like Fortnite, PUBG, H1Z1, and Realm Royale were missing. It stands out from the rest and quickly rise in popularity. With more than 50 million players just two months after its release, Apex Legends is surely challenging Fortnite. It broke its first-month record by getting 50 million players in less than a full month. It also implemented and upgraded some things here and there that either people weren’t happy with on Fortnite or just didn’t exist at all before Apex.
Apex improved quite a few things from other games. We can start with the fact that it has a very helpful pinning system. Usually, games just let you pin map locations but in this game, you can let your team know where to land or where to go, you also get to pin loot, directions, enemies and even ask for help, making it easier to interact with your team without needing a microphone.
In terms of teamwork and helping each other out, something that Apex Legends has implemented that I haven’t seen in other battle royales is its respawning system. It’s great because even if you get shot down, you have a second chance at becoming the champion of the match. Got taken down by another team? No problem—as long as one of your team members lives and delivers your banner to one of the respawn machines spread across the map, you’ll be back in the game in no time. This is great and it’s definitely something you don’t see in Fortnite until recently thanks to the pressure of being challenged by another game that, if updated and maintained right, could have the potential to dethrone Epic Games’ gem—if it hasn’t already.
Besides the pinning system and the respawn machines, another interesting thing about Apex Legends is its set of diverse and unique characters. With the latest release of Season 1, we have 10 characters to choose from: Bangalore, Bloodhound, Caustic, Gibraltar, Lifeline, Mirage, Octane, Pathfinder and Wraith. They all have powerful and unique in-combat and ultimate abilities that can go from healing and calling down some quality loot (Lifeline, I see you), to tracking your surroundings and targeting nearby enemies (everyone’s scared of Bloodhound), or releasing a double to confuse and distract the enemy team (did anyone say Lifeline?). This makes the game all the more entertaining since you can all fight your own way as a team with different flank, support and tank characters. Even if they don’t sound like a lot of characters, you’ve got to remember that the game hasn’t been out for even six months yet. You’re going to be busy maining one or two of them at first. But what do I know? It’s not like I’ve been maining Lifeline and Wraith for the past two months!
Another aspect that makes Apex stand out is its smaller map. As the game time goes on, the map becomes smaller. You usually get teamed up in trios and either get finished by an enemy team or by the Ring, which is what moves and closes up with every round. Talking about the map, there’s something I find quite funny about it because it gives me way too many Hunger Games vibes: the supply ship.
At the beginning of every round, as players get ready to drop off, besides the random dinosaurs no one understands in the middle of the sea, you also get to see this supply ship entering the map as you do and that’s basically the Hunger Games cornucopia. If you’re fast and lucky, you can not only get some good loot from it but also make it out of there alive, but if not, you might just end up being part of the bloodbath. If you don’t see the legendary knockdown shield (the yellow one) around, grab whatever you can from the outside and jump off! Don’t even bother going inside and engaging—unless your team is already in there or you just really want to risk it.
All in all, part of the reason why everyone’s talking about Apex Legends is because of these little things that make it both: stand out from the rest and offer a more enjoyable gameplay experience. Even when the game crashes sometimes, tends to log you out after a match every now and then, and either leaves you hanging alone or with an uneven team, Apex Legends is still worth a try. And honestly, I personally just hope that EA and Respawn actually manage to maintain the game and make it better with every update because of two things: I enjoy this game and I’m hoping that lasts, and I just can’t wait to see what and who else is coming with the next seasons.