Another unique element to Apex Legends is the ability to revive downed allies. Like other battle royale titles, a player is downed before being killed off and they can hold a shield item in their inventory to prevent players from shooting them to finish them off. Enemies can however, get up close an employ a lethal execution animation (these are also battler royale fists). But even then, players can recover the tags of their downed ally and bring them to a revive point where they can then re-enter the match via a dropship, but without any of their loot. These layers upon layers add so much to the dynamic of the usual die and go back to the menu style of more punishing battle royale experien

Comparing **Apex Legends ** to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 's Blackout reveals two fairly similar gameplay experiences, but what sets the former apart is its major quality-of-life improvements and marriage of the hero shooter and battle royale genres. If the game industry avoided pre-launch gaffes like Metro Exodus ' and changed the answers on its copied homework a bit more than Anthem seems willing, perhaps a free-to-play title wouldn't have so easily trounced so many expensive AAA titles in the first pl

Move over Fortnite , there's a new king in town. OK, maybe it's too early to be saying stuff like that, but there's no denying the impact that Apex Legends has had on the gaming community. According to the latest report, the game has amassed 25 million players, but that number has likely expanded. It's also the top individual game on Twitch, and it has bumped Fortnite to third place (behind League of Legend

Why was Apex Legends able to rest on its laurels this week while Respawn works on future content? The simplest answer can actually be found in what was likely perceived by EA to be its greatest weakness: it's near-total lack of pre-release marketing. Leaked only a day prior to launch, Apex Legends set the internet abuzz with the immediate promise of an all-new and well-polished experience that players could get their hands on for the tantalizing price of "free." Meanwhile, Crackdown 3 has suffered from a grueling, years-long embarrassment for Xbox Games Studios that began when it was revealed all the way back at E3 2014, greatly reducing the impact of the exclusive's largely overlooked February 15 release d

Metro Exodus is a diamond in the rough here in terms of its gameplay and story, with the other releases this week falling agonizingly flat in one area or the other. While Apex Legends is being universally lauded for its impressive blend of frenzy and strategy, as well as for its revolutionary ping system that makes teamplay easier and more integral than in any shooter before it, February has brought little else in the way of gameplay innovation. Crackdown 3 is a fairly mindless power fantasy sandbox, which is great for players seeking that experience, but disappointing to others due to how few additions it brings to the table when compared with the 12-year-old initial entry into the ser

Apex Legends is a wonderfully exciting and fun shooter that's easy to play but challenging to master given all of its systems and the gameplay potential they offer. There may be issues of character and weapon balancing, and for some, the long time-to-kill rate may be a turnoff, but for anyone looking to squad up with exactly two friends (again, for free), it's shocking how Apex Legends plays so much better than other games in the mar

The Alternator SMG really only ranks above the P2020 because it fires in full auto, dishing out a little more damage, and doing it faster. But the damage output is still pretty low and the tiny magazine is likely to leave you unable to finish the job at the most inopportune ti

It's clear that the game is generating an enormous audience, and as such, more and more people are flocking to it. But this isn't like most games. Yes, it has a tutorial, but that is very brief and hardly goes into the mechanics and complexities of the game, its controls, and its various strategies. This obviously results in many ignorant players, many of whom could probably be better players if they knew the intricate mechanics of the slg game beginner Guide rather than just the base contr

Respawn entertainment has also already clearly outlined its future plans, and Apex Legends is designed to be modular in a way that we can see plenty of interesting events and tweaks coming. Imagine a mode with larger squads, different gear, or changes to the map. It's all possi

The game's monetization model involves selling premium currency that can be spent on (very expensive) premium character and weapon skins, and the game's loot boxes (called Apex Packs). The Apex Packs contain everything from skins, to emotes, lines of dialogue for characters, and scrap that can be used to craft cosmetics not yet acquired. The best part of this take on the Overwatch loot formula is that there are no duplicates, and the rarity levels of everything are outlined on the official Apex Legends website. In the future, there will be battle passes for seasons (taking from the Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege playbook) that last three months where limited time cosmetics can be earned or purcha