On top of being initially perceived as a somewhat desperate attempt on EA's part to chase market trends, Apex Legends launched on February 4 with almost no fanfare leading up to its surprise arrival. Nevertheless, Apex Legends has ballooned into nothing short of an enigmatic triumph for EA and developer Respawn, shattering player count milestones at speeds that would have made Fortnite wince. On its surface, it would seem that Apex Legends does little to nothing that this week's major releases don't, lacking the graphical spectacle of Metro Exodus and Anthem , the open-ended sandboxes of Far Cry New Dawn and Crackdown 3 , and the pop culture mélange that Jump Force provides. But it stands out from the throng, largely thanks to its simple-yet-enthralling gameplay loop, well-refined Titanfall gunplay and movement systems, and refreshing additions and improvements to the battle royale form

Utilize the Revive Ability - If a friend gets put put to pasture by an enemy, it's possible for a teammate to pick up the deceased user's banner and revive them at a respawn station. Be ready to equip them though, as they'll rejoin the fight without a single wea

Played strictly in three-player squads across one map (called "Kings Canyon") that supports 60 players total with characters who each have their own unique abilities, right away Apex Legends differentiates itself from the competition. Its class (character) based gameplay that highlights the unique personalities and gear of each character is best compared to Overwatch , and the game also draws its monetization strategy from Blizzard's shooter as well. When it comes to its first-person gunplay however, Apex Legends plays more like Black Ops 4's Blackout mode but with more diverse gameplay and more layers of mechanics and control, including in the game's animati

It's not a bad weapon after you've obtained a few upgrades for it, but getting there is going to be a slog. The locked burst fire really drags it down in terms of DPS, limiting its ability to maintain pressure and remain useful inside of mid-range. There are definitely better ways to make use of the heavy ammo it consu

This past week was crammed full of AAA slg game updates releases, with Friday alone having seen the simultaneous launches of Crackdown 3 , Far Cry New Dawn , Metro Exodus , and, for a select few PC players , Anthem . Despite this incredibly hectic launch window, Apex Legends _ continues to reign over all its newly released competition in terms of both popularity and acclaim. When a free-to-play battle royale title so handily beats back an entire wave of full-priced games, developers and producers alike are left to scratch their heads and wonder what Respawn Entertainment's _Apex Legends has that their titles do

Like Dark Souls, Apex Legends contains many "hidden" mechanics, and it expects you to learn as you go. And that's not a bad thing. Unfortunately, this causes a rift between the experienced players and the newbies. How dejecting is it to see your level 5 player with one kill next to a level 85 adorned with achievement bad

Of course, that's impossible to truly ascertain from our experience so far with Anthem 's early hours , meaning players will have to wait and see if they will be undergoing the gauntlet of tedium that constitutes for the genre's standard end-game. However, it will undoubtedly be nigh impossible for Anthem to be able to suitably compete with a free-to-play battle royale like Apex Legends when it comes to keeping players interested with a steady flow of content. For those in the industry seeking to recreate Apex Legends ' sleeper success, or at least successfully leech away some of its massive player base, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from this week's cramped mix of launches. First, consider the option that prolonged marketing and over-exposure might actually serve to hurt games; while not all games can capture the attention of millions overnight, producer's should at the very least take steps to avoid Crackdown 3 's five-year gap between announcement and release. Second, and most importantly, developers should innovate where others have not within their genre, even if it doesn't amount to reinventing the wh

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 game rather than just the base contr

That situation is likely salvageable due to the otherwise full-priced game's instant addition to the subscription-based Xbox Game Pass service, but missteps taken by Metro Exodus publisher Deep Silver have all but overshadowed the launch of the fantastic post-apocalyptic experience when they made the boldly abrupt decision to snub Steam and limit the game's PC release to the Epic Games Store . It's unknown how deeply this last-minute choice made from the top-down has affected Metro Exodus ' sales, but it generated enough online backlash among outraged PC players to drown out any positive news about the g