Apex Legends

Apex Legends

Apex Legends

APEX LEGENDS is the best version of battle royale so far, a cooperative shooter that

reinvigorates the genre and reinvents how we communicate in games.

We press H to pay respects now. My good friend JohnnyBadNews, who I’ve never met, just let me know they found a level-three scope for my Longbow DMR. 

The selflessness – they found it in a dead player’s inventory, noted that I was using a Longbow, and let me know it was there – all without saying a word.

I pick it up and a prompt ppears on my screen, “Press H to thank JohnnyBadNews. a” 

My index finger hits that H with the firm yet gentle assurance of a hug. I think we all
now know what the H stands for.

I shouldn’t be feeling this nice. Apex

Legends is a lot like most battle royale

games. You drop from the sky onto an

island, sweep the floor for weapons

and gear, and scramble to stay inside

a series of evershrinking

circles

pressing 60 people

towards inevitable

conflict. But Apex

Legends is also the

product of the genre’s

failures so far, a patient

and refined response

that makes for the most

accessible, uncompromising battle

royale experience yet.

DRAWING OF THE THREE

Apex Legends is set in the Titanfall

universe, but plays nothing like it –

every gun has ballistics, titans are

gone, and so is wall-running. The

guns feel responsive and peppy, and

taking distance and drop into account

in the same split-second formerly

used just to take aim makes me feel

like a mathematical savant when

shots connect.

Almost every gun has a unique

personality, but the main thing is

there’s something for everyone:

semi-automatic rifles, automatic

rifles, LMGs, and SMGs. Weapon

stats are improved by finding and

equipping attachments scattered all

over the map, which is where I

thought Apex Legends would lose me.

Inventory management is still the

worst part of battle royale, but Apex

auto-equips anything better than

what I already have on a compatible

weapon. You can dig around and

swap some attachments between

weapons, or opt for a lesser scope if

you prefer it, but I love that I can let

Apex run on autopilot and choose

what’s best.

If everything sounds familiar so

far, that’s because Apex doesn’t

deviate much from the

PUBG formula. It’s

Respawn’s particular

interpretations of those

ideas that make Apex

feel so special.

Communication is

probably the best

example of this. Apex is

a shooter that

encourages kinship between

squadmates, whether it’s

concentrating fire on a single target,

coordinating abilities, or donating

the Devotion LMG you just found to

a friend in need.

Enter the ‘ping’ system, an

ingenious tool used to draw attention

to locations, items, enemies, and

objects that might be of interest to

your squadmates. I don’t want to go

back to Fortnite or PUBG or any

game unless the entire industry

agrees to implement something like

it in all multiplayer games forever

and ever, amen. It’s that simple.

You’ll use it most often to mark

where you’re headed, but if the

reticle is over an enemy, the marker

will turn into a red crosshair and

your character will note they’ve

spotted someone.

Ping an open door and they’ll

remark someone’s probably been

there. Your character will spit out a

different voice line if you ping an

opened loot container or if you ping a

closed one, and all eight characters

have lines for every item and weapon.

You can even ping pings to

acknowledge them.

Pinging’s darkest magick is its

ability to make playing with strangers

as worthwhile as playing with

friends.My first few wins came from

playing with calm, quiet enigmas

who coordinated movement, called

out enemy locations, and shared loot

without speaking or typing anything

at all. This itself is a boon to

accessibility and a salve to toxicity,

but atop it, Apex features a text-tospeech

comms option for players

with difficulty speaking or worried

about harassment, which feels like a

revolutionary act when multiplayer

games like Anthem and Fallout 76

release without text chat at all.

To go from being routinely

debased by legions of preteen racists

in Fortnite to notching wins with

strangers in utter silence in Apex

Legends is a videogame miracle.

Apex Legends