As the year closes out, I want to look back on a game that’s helped define the year for me. It’s a game that came out of nowhere but became an explosive hit. It’s a game that’s slotted its way into where Overwatch used to be when it comes to multiplayer shooters.

This game is Apex Legends, a free-to-play battle royale game by Respawn Entertainment, who is best known for the Titanfall series. Apex Legends is essentially a spin-off of Titanfall, where its iconic mechs are traded in for three-player teams that battle it out in an arena. Released back in February to little pre-launch advertising, the game has grown to a solid player base of 70 million players across PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Part of what makes Apex Legends different from other battle royale shooters is that it is also partly a hero shooter. Instead of a generic character you can dress up as, you get to play as a pre-defined character with their own abilities, appearances, and personalities. For the sake of growing attached to characters, there’s actually some light story elements in trailers and lore attached to unlockable loading screens. It’s not exactly a lot, but it does enough to flesh them out a bit, and it also helps that it has pre-existing Titanfall lore to build off of. Also, honestly, it’s still way more lore than Overwatch had in the span of the same year.

Normal games have you putting together a team of three, though there have been some limited-time modes that let players play solo and duo. For convenience, the characters are separated into four types: offense, defense, recon, and support. Much like a normal team-based hero shooter, it’s preferable to create a balanced team to better handle opposing teams. Unless you’re one of those jerks that just go off on their own to rack up kills without regard for your teammates.

There’s also a bit of an imbalance when it comes to characters. The thing is, two characters really stand on top of all the other ones: the supports, Lifeline and Pathfinder. Lifeline is the only one with the ability to heal, which saves the need for wasting medical items that could be more useful toward the endgame. She can also summon an airdrop, and while it’ll attract attention, more experienced players can probably use that for traps.

As for Pathfinder, he is probably the hardest hero to hit. Besides his janky hitbox, he has grappling abilities that give him better mobility than the other characters. His ultimate ability to set down ziplines also allows the entire team to cover ground quickly, which is also a useful thing in the endgame as the circles close.

After character selection, the players fly over the map as is typical of modern battle royales, and drop down toward battle. When the game first launched it had a map called King’s Canyon, which was kind of a half-desert/half-swamp thing. As of the current season 3, the main map is World’s Edge, which includes volcanic and snow biomes as well as skyscrapers that place a lot more emphasis on close-range combat and verticality.

I personally prefer World’s Edge, but I can understand if people would rather drop down in King’s Canyon, which has been absent save for the Halloween event. In the future, it would be cool if players could choose what map they could play on or rotate the maps on a more regular basis to give some variety.

Yet, where should the team drop down? If you’re like me, maybe you don’t like talking to strangers and refuse to use voice chat. Well, not to worry, because Apex Legends has a pretty robust pinging system. You can look on over at a place, hit R1, and a waypoint is placed down for everyone. Find an item you don’t need or think someone else doesn’t need? Ping it and your character reads it out to the team. If you’re playing as Bangalore, she’ll also give more specific details on pinged guns, which feels like a nod toward novice players figuring out the game.

Somebody can then ping the same item back to “dibs” it, which will also save the item on the map until it’s picked up so that they can find the item more easily. Of course, you can also ping enemies, showing off their last location. There’s a variety of more specific pings you can put on the map, creating a robust way of communicating with your team without ever needing to hit up voice chat.

You land somewhere and the looting commences. Looting is actually pretty streamlined in Apex Legends. If you have a gun that uses light ammo and you find, say, a level 2 magazine expansion for light guns, you’ll immediately equip it. If you find a level 1 magazine expansion, a text window will tell you it’s inferior so you don’t accidentally pick up clutter. If you switch that light ammo gun out for a weapon with a different ammo type, any attachments incompatible with the new gun are automatically dropped, saving you from the burden of inventory management.

Meanwhile, healing items and explosives are accessed through quick-menus, which further mitigates the need to dig through your inventory. The only misstep is the Ultimate Accelerants, which increases a character’s ultimate gauge upon use, as you have to manually go into the inventory to use it. Personally, I think it should be included in the same quick-select menu as the game’s healing items, since it’s functionally like a consumable.

Oh no! Another team has landed in the same area as yours, so hopefully, you’ve grabbed a gun. There’s a variety of guns separated into different ammo types and gun types. As somebody that loves the impractical revolver choice in games, Apex Legends gets a thumbs up from me for the Wingman, which is actually a really good pistol weapon.

There’s a good variety of weapons that you can probably slide into a loadout with whatever you can find. Except with the P2020 and Mozambique, two guns that are just so awful that they’re the only ones with hop-ups that improve them with no downside. If you’re more discerning with your gun tastes and want an intricate guide though, I recommend this guide written by Rock Paper Shotgun.

Shooting in the game also just feels good. It’s got a solid game feel that makes firefights feel punchy. In particular, the blast that the Peacekeeper makes is just satisfying to hear, especially if it’s accompanied by the noise of somebody being downed. Of course, you do have to deal with recoil, which is a bit of a learning curve. There are some guns that use barrel stabilizer attachments that mitigate some of that, though as a result, rifles that don’t take stabilizers like the Havoc are better off in the hands of more seasoned players.

You’re slow on the draw and get downed in the fight. Thankfully, Apex Legends has two ways to mitigate death: knockdown shields and respawns. As you crawl around on your knees, you can deploy a shield to protect yourself from damage that can finish you off, with higher-level shields having more health, buying time until a teammate can rescue you.

If you do die though, a teammate can grab a banner from the crate holding all of your belongings and take it to a designated respawn point. What I do like about respawning is that besides giving players another chance, the price of doing so isn’t cheap. A very loud, very visible drop ship comes in with you, which will telegraph to everyone in the area that your team is there. In fact, if you’re really unlucky, you’ll end up getting killed almost immediately after dropping back down. Respawns are a huge risk, but so is trying to tough it out with fewer members.

There is one major fumble with the knockdown shields though: the gold knockdown shield. There are gold pieces of equipment that grant extra benefits alongside the usual protection afforded, like the gold body armor making items fast use (as of season 3 anyway). The gold knockdown shield allows a player to revive themselves, which could give a downed team another shot.

Except the problem is that using the shield for its intended purpose as a shield will immediately telegraph your ability to revive, encouraging enemies to gang up on you before your really slow revive animation finishes. This is a bit nitpicky, but it’s just so bad folks.

Besides the shooting and a vast non-verbal communication system, there’s also the fact that just moving around feels good as well. You can run a bit and do a slide, with slopes propelling you even further. Although Apex Legends lacks the same kind of parkour from the Titanfall games, players can still effortlessly climb over surfaces.

It makes fighting in small buildings more intense, as players can easily escape a firefight and flank enemies by clambering over the roof. The fact that there’s no fall damage really helps encourage players to move around. Screw fighting, you can just take a dive off a cliff and run away if things get too hairy. If you also happen to be Pathfinder, movement further opens up to you because his grappling hook is versatile, though it has a bit of a learning curve to get used to.

As is battle royale standard, a circle starts to trap players in, with a damage over time storm beyond it that’s more harmful as the match goes on. The game starts with 20 teams, which will continue to thin down as the ring closes. An interesting thing about Apex Legends is that there are things that boost your experience point gain after the match is over. However, the game saves itself from being “pay-to-win” by requiring that you reach the top 5 for that boost to actually kick in. If you want more experience, you’re actually going to have to earn it by outlasting 15 other teams.

Since said experience boosts are prizes from battle passes, let’s talk about the game’s monetization. Apex Legends has a battle pass, and while it was initially kinda garbage, it was greatly improved starting with season 2. The challenge-based system for advancing the battle pass encourages players to play outside of their comfort zone and try out different characters and guns. That said, there are some challenges that feel more luck dependent than anything.

Some challenges are going to be for stuff like finding legendary equipment or getting knockdowns with a weapon that you can only get through supply crates. Unless you’re really proactive, you’re going to have to be lucky to find these and even then, better hope your teammate doesn’t grab it before you do, because I doubt they’ll hand it over unless you’re playing with friends. Then there are challenges based on fighting enemies at certain locations, which is entirely dependent on people actually being there. It’s not impossible, but just really annoying.

Then there’s the cosmetics. The game’s got a bunch of cosmetics and, of course, you have to buy in-game currency for boxes for the chances of rolling them. You can also level for them, but unlike Overwatch which guarantees a box with every level up, you get a free box for every other level up which will take a long time.

What’s particularly insidious is the limited-time event cosmetics. The good news is that the limited cosmetics are cool, have boxes locked to just the event content, and you can also craft them yourself if you have enough crafting materials, one of the game’s other currencies. The bad news is that an event box costs 700 Apex Coins, or, $7.

It’s an outrageous system, especially since the game also dangles an exclusive cosmetic that you can only get by getting all the other event cosmetics. Even if I manage to get a cosmetic that I actually like (like the goofy reindeer skin I got for Octane), it’s a system that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It’s easily one of the worst monetized things I’ve personally seen in a game.

Speaking of limited-time events, a thing that I wish Apex Legends would do is to make the solo and duo modes permanent fixtures. These modes were well-received, so it’s baffling that they’ve only been around for a limited time. Sometimes you only have one friend to play with and don’t want to cooperate with a stranger, so keeping a duos mode around would be ideal. Sometimes, you just want to be a glory seeker that doesn’t care about teammates, so a permanent solo mode would be welcome for people with that attitude. Please, please keep these people out of my teams.

Overall, Apex Legends is a fun game that just feels good to play, with an amount of character that helps make it stand out compared to other contemporary battle royale games. However, Apex Legends is guilty of having an exploitative business model, which keeps it from being truly perfect sans its occasional hiccups in my eyes. If you haven’t played Apex Legends yet, take the time this winter break to enjoy some matches, or maybe ring in the new year with a great new game.

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Apex Legends

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Fun and polished gameplay
• Streamlined Inventory Cuts Down on Need For Management
• Robust Non-Verbal Communication System
• Different Characters to Try

Cons

• Awful Monetization Schemes
• Limited-Time Modes Aren't Permanent