Apex Legends - The Crownless King of Battle Royale

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We live in an age of gaming where Battle Royale games are dime a dozen, every one and their mother knows of this genre at this point. It's even considered the most saturated genre in gaming, but despite this it's also one of the most successful genres as seen by titles such as Fortnite and Battlegrounds. In between all these BR titles that get released almost monthly, there's some which break the mold and turn the genre on its head, one of which is what we're gonna be learning about today, Apex Legends (Mobile)
Apex Legends is a spinoff sequel to Titanfall 2, it was actually going to be named Titanfall 3 originally but the creators realised that it lacked the main features of Titanfall, namely Titans (Large mechs). The history of Apex Legend's development is an interesting one and very much so fascinating. I'll be diving deep into what made this game so popular, how was its development cycle, and why is it the Crownless King of Battle Royale. So strap onto your seat belts and enjoy the ride through the Outlands!
(All Header Arts credits in this review goes to @Delta Wowf UwU)
Apex Legends Mobile is a mobile port of the famous PC Battle Royale game, Apex Legends. The PC version released in 2019 while the Mobile version came out in May 2022, developed by Lightspeed Studio (Also the studio behind PUBGM). The basic premise of Apex Legends is simple, your squad drop on a 1x1im map, loot weapons and fight to survive till you're the last squad alive. However that's where the neat twist on the genre comes into play. You see Apex Legends is unique in the sense that it heavily promotes teamplay to the point there's not even a solo mode!
Apex Legends isn't a game you can win solo; it's made to be that you have to work with your team to win. However you might be thinking what about people who don't like to chat in games? That's a fair thought and Respawn had the best answer for it. Apex Legends has the literal best ping system that we'll get to later in this review, for now just trust me on the fact you can have amazing communication even without chatting in this game. There's many more unique features about this game and I'll now go through the different aspects of the game one by one, let's start with the most important topic, Gunplay!
Gunplay is the heart and soul of every shooter game, its the main aspect of the genre after all. It's also the aspect that can make or break any aspiring shooter games. The Gunplay in Apex Legends is definitely one of its most core aspects as well, and its great! Apex Legends tackles the hurdle of making exciting gunplay very well. Firing the guns feels very satisfying and the sfx for the guns is also really well made. Though compared to PUBGM or Fortnite, Apex Legends does have longer TTKs (Time To Kill) which make the game feel quite slow in the beginning however once you learn the game it no longer feels like an issue since the slightly longer TTKs are designed to go hand in hand with the armour system. To explain it briefly here, just like the level 1-3 vests in PUBGM, Apex Legends features an upgradable armour system which rewards you for damaging players. The armour can be collected via ground or upgraded via getting damage, it substantially reduces damage as the level goes up. That's how the TTKs become longer as the match progresses, but the longer TTKs actually benefit the game as it makes the late game engagements more intense. *Unsurprisingly engagements are more fun when they last for longer than half a second!*
Apex Legends features the gun types everyone's familiar with; Pistols, rifles, shotguns, Machine Guns, Shotguns, snipers. And since the game is set in a sci-fi world, its filled with sci-fi weaponry! From a heavy hitting sniper that shoots out a plasma laser to a laser rifle which doesn't need to be reloaded, Apex Legends definitely isn't lacking in the cool guns department!
However there's one area where ApexM falls behind the PC version, the recoil. To make it easier for casual players the recoil was made to be much easier to control, but they made it a bit too easy as you'll not be feeling any recoil if you're experienced with mobile shooters. It exists but it's way too easy to control. The game also features an autofire option which honestly is really bad, though on the flip side it also features an auto aim which is way too good. Still you do need to aim yourself, however the auto aim makes it very much easier to stay on target without much effort. It makes the game easier for a casual player (like me) but could be a big bad for players who play games more seriously so there's that to keep in mind.
Though looking past the few downsides, overall the gunplay in Apex Legends Mobile is definitely one of the most fun ones as its easy to learn and have fun with, you don't require hours of mastering it just to enjoy the game. Overall I would say the gunplay isn't *The* best but it's still very enjoyable and definitely well made.
If Gunplay is the heart and soul of a game then Gameplay is the body and blood that keep it all together. Gameplay is just as important as Gunplay, you can have the best gunplay in the world but if the gameplay is bad then the gunplay will never be played. And so both of these 2 aspects go hand in hand. This is also the category Apex Legends excels at. If you've been looking for high octane gameplay then Apex Legends is what you need. It features the most intense high action low downtime on the BR market currently. It also features the best movement in all of mobile fps which give it a huge edge as you'll never feel like a snail when running around. The movement always feels quick and fast. The fast movement allows for traversing the map very quickly and find engagements faster, which is another area it excels at.
Apex Legends features 2 1x1 maps (Seasonal), the current one is King's Canyon and the one before was World's Edge. The small map allow for faster gameplay as matches only last for 15-17 minutes on average which push all players towards the middle faster and make engagements common. And despite featuring such small maps, the team at Respawn created such great maps that if you don't know they're 1x1 then they actually don't feel that small. The maps feel at least 4x4 big and you'll never feel like the map is small while playing.
Now let's get back to one of the points I mentioned in the intro, squads only & the ping system. An average match consists of 20 squads with 3 players each so 60 players in total. The game heavily promotes teamplay and communication, but how does it handle communication for people without Voice Chat? It tackles that problem using the best ping system in gaming! The ping system works based around the characters in Apex Legends (we'll get to that after this), as in if you mark anything the characters will speak for you in their own way. It's a great dynamic of having characters practically talk for you, and since the voicelines are taken from the PC version, they're all really good. The ping system is also very dynamic in the sense of how much it allows for, there's different ping voicelines for almost everything. It actually covers almost all average call-outs you'd want in a fps game. Which makes teamplay become easy even without VC!
Being squad only also doesn't mean that individual skill has no value, of course it does! All the players in a team having individual skills that they excel is what makes a great team after all. The healer being good at healing, the recon being good at scouting, the attacker being good at engaging, and so on. Just cause its team based doesn't take away from the fact that everyone needs to have something they're good at for the team to win as well.
Lastly for gameplay, I'll touch on the armour system which was mentioned in the intro. This is another one of the unique features that Apex Legends has, the upgradable armour system. The armour in Apex Legends comes in 5 tiers (or levels) in the form of ground loot or upgradable. Whenever you pick any tier armour, you also get a counter next to it. The counter represents how much damage you need to deal to upgrade your armour to next tier, for example if you pick up tier 2 armour it'll be upgraded to tier 3 once you do enough damage and then the tier 3 armour will get its own counter. At base you can only upgrade upto tier 4 and then get tier 5 armour from air drops. All tier 5 or golden gear also gives special buffs (the characters have voicelines explaining the effects too). For armour it increases how much you heal by a substantial amount.
Though aside from armour, there's 3 other gear slots. Helmet, Backpack, and Plate. None of these are upgradable and can only be found as ground loot upto tier 4 and tier 5 in airdrops, all of them also feature special buffs as mentioned earlier.
We got heart, soul, blood, and a body but what about the appearance? That's where Graphics come in! All games require graphics to show the gameplay in an appealing way and Apex Legends is no different in this regard. The Graphics in Apex Legends are very stylised as opposed to realistic graphics, which works really well for it. The game is also very well optimised for lower end devices with a wide range of graphics settings, even on the lowest graphics it looks really good! And on the highest it obviously looks beautiful. The dev team over at Lightspeed did a fantastic job at porting the original look and feel of Apex Legends to mobile, I mean you can obviously tell by the fact it won this contest for Most Visually Stunning game. The graphics settings in Apex Legends Mobile are also made to very flexible and adjustable, though that's only available on high end devices. For low end it does allow for using neat filters that make the game look more to your liking (I personally use Realistic filter). All in all even if you have a lower end device, there's a good chance that Apex Legends Mobile will still work fairly well for you.
We've got almost everything about the body ready, but there's something missing... Oh the character! Characters aren't something every game features but they're a great addition to games that do. Apex Legends is one of those games that does feature a large variety of characters with their own unique personalities and voices. On mobile there's currently 13 characters with 2 being added each season, mobile also features exclusive champs which aren't available on PC version! In this section I'll mention some of my favourite characters and their backgrounds:
Bloodhound: She's the one you see in the Characters header. She's a nordic styled character with a Voice Actor who sounds like an actual viking. Bloodhound is a recon scout in the game, but in her lore she's part of an old culture called “The Old Ways” however she's unique in the sense she combines the old ways with the new tech. She has an 8 minutes long cinematic which you should definitely check out, it's very well animated and has a great story. Bloodhound also has a pet raven named "Arthur", he doesn't really appear in game but she's got emotes with him. The duo make up a great character which I love.
Caustic: Caustic is a Mad Scientist who uses the Apex Games to test his Nox Gas. Nox Gas was made for pesticide repelling but Caustic felt like he needed more alive test subjects to truly perfect his product. He's someone who only cares about his research and prides himself on its effectiveness while killing his subjects. The nox gas burns the lungs of its victims so you get the idea of how terrible Nox is. He's not evil in the sense that he wants the destruction of mankind, rather he's evil in that he doesn't mind stepping on a few lives to forward his work.
Mirage: Mirage is the most carefree guy who you just can't hate on. His character is fun and quirky with never a dull moment, all his voicelines reflect that personality trait of his really well as well. You just can't help but love his character. However underneath that carefree nature lies his true insecure self. Mirage's mother suffers from dementia and to give his mom some happiness he participates in the Apex Games to show off how great her son is. In reality he's not carefree but rather very insecure, but he masks that insecurity by acting carefree and friendly. He's a very relatable character with a really well written history.
The Making of Apex Legends is an interesting and fascinating tale. There's not much revealed about the development of Apex Legends Mobile and so I'll be taking you down the history of Apex Legends and how it performed after release now, if you'd like to skip this section then scroll to the last section for my Afterthoughts about the game.
Everyone has a past and so does Apex Legends. The origins of this game first started with the release of Titanfall 2. Titanfall 2 was the biggest title released by Respawn in 2016 and it was a pretty big success. However now they needed a new title to follow up the success of Titanfall 2, that's where Apex Legends came in. According to design director Mackey McCandlish, initial design on Apex started before Titanfall 2 had shipped in 2016 and as of 2018 the entire Titanfall team at Respawn was working on the project. Apex Legends had approximately 115 developers working on it, making it the Studio's most labour-intensive project. In comparison Titanfall 2 only had 85 developers.
According to McCoy, the studio wasn't sure of what their game would be after Titanfall, though they wanted to keep it in the Titanfall universe. The studio broke into several small teams to create "action blocks", small game prototypes that showcase a gameplay element, a weapon, or similar feature of a game that would fit into a Titanfall sequel. One such prototype was inspired by the then famous PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG); This prototype applied features from the Titanfall titles in a battle royale format, it was considered very successful and the studio decided to expand on it. One of the most core aspects of Titanfall was pilotable Titans (Large mechs) but they wouldn't really work in a Battle Royale Format so instead the designer went with Character Classes which felt appropriate for the Titanfall series.
The design philosophy for Apex Legends was “chasing the fun” and designing all the mechanics around team-based, rather than solo-based. The final decision on major design factors, such as the size of the teams, the number of teams and the size of the map, were all based on what felt "most fun" to the developers and were strongly guided by "gut feeling".
Design director Mackey McCandlish also stated that with Apex Legends, they were looking to challenge the conventions of the still relatively young battle-royale genre and to add their studio's unique touch to that class of games. They felt that the choice of three-man squad and a limit of 20 teams gave players a higher chance of victory on average. McCandlish claimed that the studio felt the need to create a "defensible space" in the battle-royale mode which could not be easily imitated and that the communication system, the three-man squads, and the smaller playing area were all aligned with this goal.
As part of the development process, the game underwent extensive play-testing to ensure that all elements felt fun and balanced. Collectively the developers spent 100-200 hours a day trying out the game,  a process which executive producer Drew McCoy called "probably the most important part of development". To refine the non verbal communication system, the studio play-tested the game without the use of voice chat and applied fake names to play-testers to predict how most players would experience the game.
With the game mostly completed, Respawn's director of brand marketing, Arturo Castro, began working on how the studio would name and market it. Castro recognised that the game lacked the core aspects of Titanfall, namely Titans, pilots, and the singleplayer experience. On the outside there were also rumours circulating that a new Titanfall game was being worked on by a source at the studio. Respawn therefore decided that attempting to market it as Titanfall would be difficult and alienate the fanbase, and so they turned it into a new IP set in Titanfall universe. Respawn was also concerned that as they at that time had recently been acquired by EA, players would think that EA had forced them to make a battle royale game. McCoy affirmed that they had to convince EA to let them make this game: "we decided to make this game. Not to be throwing EA under the bus, but this wasn't the game they were expecting. I had to go to executives, show it to them, and explain it and...not convince but more, 'Hey, trust us! This is the thing you want out of us.' [...] This is a game where we had to say, 'This is what we want to do. Help us get there.'"
On the list of concerns there was also the concern that a standard 6-months marketing campaign would generate negative publicity from disgruntled Titanfall fans. Castro claims that they eventually took inspiration from Beyoncé whose release of her self-titled album came as a surprise to fans—a strategy which proved financially successful. Wanting to produce some buzz about this new product before its release, the studio arranged a private play-testing event and invited 100 social media influencers to it. They then were instructed to tease the news about the game during the halftime of the Super Bowl LIII, the day before Apex Legends' formal release. Respawn CEO Vince Zampella felt the approach was "gross", according to Castro, as he found it reminiscent of the infamous Fyre Festival "hype" which later turned out to be a fraudulent event. However as Apex Legends was already ready for release at this point, Castro felt the approach was an appropriate marketing strategy. This approach was uncharacteristic of any prior EA titles, yet it worked well for the game as evident by the high player-count and viewer ship on streaming platforms after release.
The release of Apex Legends was an incredibly successful one, on metacritics the game is rated generally favourable and some publications, including Destructoid, Game Informer,GamesRadar+,and PC Gamer, called it one of the best takes on the battle royale genre thus far, and a worthy challenger to Fortnite Battle Royale's dominance of the genre.
Critics lauded the combat in Apex Legends. Destructoid referred to the gunplay as the best they had experienced in a battle royale thus far; however, they felt let down that some of the mechanics from the previous Titanfall games were not present. Javy Gwaltney of Game Informer, on the other hand, claimed that the omission of the Titans and other elements from previous Respawn games was not a problem and found the combat to be satisfying and the gunplay powerful. He added that the addition of heroes can make for more exciting combat than in other battle royale games.
Reviewers also highly praised the Ping system in the game with most considering it to be highly innovative. Polygon's Khee Hoon Chan opined that it "rendered voice chat with strangers largely unnecessary". Rock Paper Shotgun called it the "gold standard for non-verbal communication in games". IGN awarded the game a 9, summing up the review by saying "Apex Legends is squad-based battle royale done right, complete with cool heroes, a superb communication system, and polished mechanics". The ping system was so good that even EA patented it in US in 2021. Though they later announced that the ping system patent would be made available for free to game developers to use without fear of litigation starting in August 2021.
Apex Legends was also nominated for a lot of awards and it even won a few of them.
Here's a list of all awards it was nominated for and won:
Apex Legends has generated over $1 billion in lifetime review and has 100 million unique player accounts, needless to say the game was very successful post launch.
Congratulations you've made it to the end! I thank you for taking rhis journey with me, we made a full human body and learned different things about the game. It was a fun ride and I hope you had as much fun as I did. If I had to summarise this review then I'd say that Apex Legends Mobile is an amazing game, The Best Battle Royale on mobile even. It has its flaws too of course but the goods make up for the parts it lacks at. Overall the game is very fun and I'd definitely highly recommend it.
Now what are you waiting for? The Apex Games Need YOU!
(All Headers Credits goes to @Delta Wowf UwU)
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caden
caden
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bruh it won't download but I like it for now
10/02/2022
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薇薇vivee
薇薇vivee
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Here I am, for +1 views. You did it a Good Job. I just couldn't play the FPS very well, otherwise I would try someday.
10/13/2022
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Rahul Meher
Rahul Meher
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how to register
10/13/2022
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