Title: Apex Legends
Platform: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Cost: Free to Play
Rating: Teen for blood, violence
Score: 9 out of 10
Fortnite might still be the undisputed king of the battle royale genre, but month-old Apex Legends is aiming for the crown.
Developed by Respawn, makers of Titanfall, and published by Electronic Arts, Apex Legends was crafted in near total secrecy until it dropped out of seemingly nowhere. Already it has gained a meteoric 50 million players.
Apex Legends checks off a lot of the boxes of the battle royale genre: island map, descent from the sky, starting off with no weapons, having to scavenge for loot and stay inside a steadily shrinking zone designed to force players into confrontations.
But what it lacks in originality, it makes up in precision and polish. Character movement is sharp. They can slide down hills, clamber over walls and other obstacles and swing from ziplines.
Movement is easy but combat is harder. Guns have recoil, sway, shot patterns. Success requires practice and skill, as it should, and some weapons are clearly better than others, encouraging players to search for better gear.
The lore behind Apex Legends is pretty thin. The game is set in the Titanfall universe, 30 years after the events of Titanfall 2, and players are competing in a blood sport event watched by the masses. Currently there are only eight hero characters from which to choose, each with a short biography and unique skill set.
Lifeline is the team medic, with a drone that can heal teammates. Gibraltar is a massive, tank-like man and can put up a bullet shield that halts all attacks. Pathfinder is a sentient robot that can launch a grapple and reach high places that would normally be out of reach.
Of the eight available Legends, only six are unlocked and playable from the start. It takes a good 15-20 hours of playing to unlock one of the two locked characters.
The battle royale mode in Apex Legends isn't about being the best player, though — but the best team. So far, there's only one game mode — 20 teams of three players each, fighting until the last squad remains. That's almost certain to change in the future, however.
Like Fortnite, Apex Legends is free to play and is supported through microtransactions for cosmetic items and playable heroes. It's also possible to earn these items through gameplay.
Apex Legends is also getting a Fortnite-inspired Battle Pass in the game's inaugural season (starting this month), and there are four seasons planned for the year. That means the game will change a little every season. This seasonal mechanic allows players to earn time-limited cosmetic items and will introduce new weapons, heroes and mechanics into the game. Expect a Battle Pass to cost somewhere around $10 per season.
(See an explanation of the difference between "gameplay" and "game mechanics" here.)
What really sets Apex Legends apart from its competitors is its ping system, which lets players communicate by marking items, locations and enemies rather than using voice or text chat. It's quick, intuitive and universal, and I expect that particular mechanic will be adopted by other games in the genre.
After dropping from the sky, players will generally spend some time roaming from location to location, searching for better weapons, armor and ammunition. The ping system will mark unneeded items so that other teammates can run over and snag them. Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds both have squad-based matches, but with them, death is the end. In Apex Legends, after a player is killed, teammates have 90 seconds to pick up that character's banner and take it to a respawn location, getting him or her back into the action.
It's this focus on complementary team play that sets Apex Legends apart from the pack.
The weapons used in Apex Legends are pretty standard: shotguns, rifles, pistols, submachine guns. There are various kinds of guns for each category, though, and various attachments will upgrade their usability and sometimes change their abilities.
Players also can pick up helmets, armor, healing kits and grenades. Inventory management has been simplified and makes switching between weapons and looting enemy bodies of their better gear much faster.
While the game is available only on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, developers have said there are plans to release Apex Legends on iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch platforms as well.
Is Apex Legends a titan slayer? Only time will tell, but I think Fortnite's reign of dominance might be coming to an end.
Style on 03/11/2019