October 5, 2023
Respawn, the studio responsible for the amazing Titanfall saga, whose second installment was an FPS milestone and one of the most dynamic and curious games in the shooter genre, has managed to use its universe of titans to develop a battle royale full of narrative details, excellent fluid movement, and a unique personality.
These are some details of why Apex Legends is my favorite battle royale and make it a different experience within the genre.
Choose the Legend for Your Playstyle
Instead of having a generic playable character whose design can only vary with skins, Apex lets you choose between a diverse cast of playable heroes (here known as Legends), each with its own abilities and personality. Each legend has a specific Passive ability, Tactical or Active ability, and Ultimate, which can be classified into four different categories: offensive, defensive, recon, and support.
Players can pick the Legend that best suits their playstyle, whether you like to go in head first and tank as much damage as you can, sneak into the back and catch your enemies by surprise, or keep your teammates alive so your squad can make more powerful combined attacks.
Respawn has been doing a good job balancing each hero so that there is not one that stands out in an exaggerated way over another and making it possible always to play whatever you feel like playing, although there are characters that work better with each other than others.
This would be enough to provide playable variety, but Respawn wanted to go further, so they gave each of these legends their own personality and voice. So today, we have our beloved Mirage to brighten up our day, Loba for some sassy comments, or Bloodhound for serious and mysterious quotes. This was a huge bonus point for me in the game as I’m passionate about lore, story, and character connections, so I felt even more inclined to play the game.
Fast-paced Movement and Tactical Game
Apex Legends combines some light tactical games (PUBG is more tactical than Apex but at the same time extremely slow) and the stylized and cartoony scenes from Fortnite, making it the perfect hybrid battle royale. It’s got the best of both worlds.
One of the highlights of Titanfall II is the high speed of the gameplay. The characters move fast and agile, performing double jumps and running up walls. There are no wall runs or boosted jumps in Apex, but the game moves at full speed just the same. The game invites you to be fast and deadly, and the movement feels so fluid that it’s a joy to run through the world.
Don’t worry – you’re not going to miss the wall runs or double jumps. You can try other ways to cross the map: Pathfinder’s zip line, Wraith’s portal that connects two points on the map (separated by a handful of meters), Loba’s teleport or the big red balloons that are spread around the map that can throw us back to the sky to fly some distance.
Apex Legends is a perfect crossover between both ends of the spectrum. The game is fast-paced but also very tactical. Each special ability can change the course of a fight. The Time to Kill in Apex Legends is higher so players take longer to die. Everyone has an opportunity to fight back and defend themselves.
A Communication System That Marked a Before and an After
One of the masterpieces that Apex Legends created was a very simple but complete communication system. You can clearly communicate with your team without the need to use a microphone or perform weird movements inside the game for others to decipher.
You can mark an enemy or object with a simple button to make its position known, the character even says out loud what you’re pinging in a natural way. When marking objects, the character not only says what the object is but its rarity as well. With the same button, you can mark points on the map and even open a wheel to refine what you really want to say. It also works within the inventory: point out the ammunition of one of your weapons, mark which modifiers you need, basically everything associated with a character voice line.
Even when playing with friends, where you usually would use a microphone, the most useful and quickest way to communicate effectively is by marking everything: destination, weapons, armor, enemies, etc., whatever you see. It’s such an easy-to-understand system that can’t be made faster using your own voice, but the combination of both systems makes you feel more powerful.
Promoting Team Play
If a teammate fails to revive you while you’re knocked down, you die and drop a box that contains all your equipment and a card that will be available for collection for a certain time. If your teammates manage to pick up the card, take it to a respawn beacon and insert it then you can come back to the battlefield. You will return empty-handed but hey, it is a second chance to do your best and fight for victory. Equip yourself again or find your crate and, with some luck, everything will still be there.
There’s no other battle royale in which the figure of Jumpmaster exists. In Apex Legends, each squad member does not jump separately at the start of the game, one of the three members chooses when and where to jump, and the other two go on each side of the leader. Apex is meant to be played as a team but you can detach from the squad to jump freely or detach later in the jump to fine-tune your own landing.
Easy-to-use Inventory Management
As Apex Legends is a fast-paced game, we need to make every second count.
If you find a scope for a weapon you’re carrying, it allows you to attach the scope directly. If you have ammunition in your inventory for a weapon you’re NOT carrying, there’s a big red cross over it to let you know that you can’t use it. If you find an item of a higher rarity than the one you’re carrying, it will replace it when you pick it up, but if it’s of a lower rarity, it will let you know, so you don’t change it by mistake.
The goal is to open your inventory as little as possible to maximize the time you spend running and aiming. There’s no pause in the action. In seconds you can equip yourself with the best and keep moving forward.
Conclusion
This is just my personal opinion but, Apex has a fantastic combination between lore and gameplay. I would totally pay to play an Apex RPG, and this comes only from phrases that the characters say while you play, comments with other characters they know, and the incredible cinematics that Respawn gives us every start of the season or with new characters, … they haven’t told us anything, and they have already told us everything. I just want to know more!
It isn’t as complex as Rainbow Six, but it asks the player to make decisions fast. Camping in one place all game is not an option, but if you encounter another squad, you don’t die in a millisecond, which helps make the game a little less frustrating. And when you manage to get to that small ring at the end of the game, when it’s all or nothing, your heart beats out of your chest with excitement.
Each weapon and legend has its own pros and cons, but I feel like Respawn has been working really hard to achieve balance, and, nowadays, there’s no weapon/legend that’s extremely over another.
The ping system is a masterpiece, not entirely a new concept, but everyone else has yet to be able to create a non-verbal communication system as accurate as theirs. It’s an indispensable element of the game and has made it possible to play successfully with strangers without having to say a word.
I love Apex. It’s my kind of jam. I know it’s not for everybody; some people thrill with that millisecond combat where you either kill or be killed. I like to have some time to move around, reposition, and think about my options. Apex Legends offers me that carefully designed movement that feels smooth and satisfying and complex lore behind every legend (which is a HUGE plus for me).