Apex Legends, the new free to play battle royale game by Respawn, launched earlier this week much to everyone surprise. The title received no form of marketing outside of a few tweets here and there, yet the game has already amassed ten million players in just three days. Even streamers like Ninja, Shroud, and DrDisRespect are getting in on the action making it one of the most viewed games on Twitch ranging from 200 to 500 thousand viewers a day.
It plays similar to how you’d expect it to play: a dropship flies over island sending players plummeting down to battle it out. Looting works similar to Blackout or Pubg, kill an enemy and they drop their player stash. Now, however, the UI will help the player, identify any loot they need or don’t need by simply marking weaker or less efficient items with a red x. This is a major improvement over other titles in the shooter subgenre where you would have to manage different types of ammo, armor or attachments. If it doesn’t fit don’t grab it. Weapon attachments will auto-equip upon being picked up and will even swap out if you already have one in use. They will even transfer to compatible weapons should you drop a gun for a better variant. This is about where the similarities end. Now at the start of each match, you must select a Legend. Each Legend has its own unique abilities. Bloodhound is able to track and hunt down enemy players with his ultimate, which is quite similar to the predator vision. Pathfinder, the recon scout, is able to deploy a zip line for his teammates and can even identify the next zone by hacking into data terminals. This unique touch is what separates Apex from other games like Blackout or Fortnite.
Now for some of the lackluster aspects of this game. In its current state, there is only one mode. No solo, duo or LTM like Fortnite, just trio. You could argue that the game is meant to be more team based since the addition of different Legend, each with their own skills, but the lack of different modes has left a bitter taste in some players mouths. The game still has some dips in its frames even with it being as polished as it is. Add inconsistent crashes and server issues and your overall experience begins to rapidly decrease. As of now, my game has crashed around ten or eleven different times. With that being said I have yet to find any major game breaking bugs or exploits being used by players to gain some sort of advantage.
After about some thirty odd matches I'd like to say that this game is a major breath of fresh air. Many people were skeptical about a new title, with zero promotional ads, in an already over-saturated genre. Apex does exactly what it set out to do: be different and set itself apart from the competition. Is this game perfect? No, not at all. In fact, I would say it’s nowhere near perfect in its current state. Regardless of its flaws, it’s an overall enjoyable game that’s a lot of fun with friends. I highly recommend this game but at the same time offer up a warning about the current stability of the shoot.
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