Apex Legends: Early impressions

I'm not really one for the battle royal games.

PUBG and its insane popularity came out of nowhere for me. I knew of Fortnite a just OK multiplayer team shooter with some interesting graphics. I kind of got in H1Z1 a little bit, just because it was really easy to play. I still haven't played Call of Duty: Black Ops IV, so I can't even begin to tell you what Blackout is like.

On the other hand, I really liked Titanfall 2. So, when I heard that Respawn had made their own take on the genre and it was set in the Titanfall universe and it was free, I figured I didn't have anything to lose except a little bit of my time (and probably some of my pride).

After spending a good few hours on Apex Legends, I've come to two conclusions: 1) I'm still terrible at battle royal games and 2) this battle royal game is a lot of fun.

Apex Legends starts like any other game of its ilk: the menu screen has options to set up a party (which is very important - more on that in a bit), go to the store to purchase cosmetic add-ons and unlock new characters (called Legends in this game, in case that wasn't painfully obvious), and other such things. By the way, don't worry about that bit about "unlocking new characters" - the majority of Legends are already unlocked and free to use. There were only two that were locked, and they didn't seem particularly interesting.

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The game is a battle royal pitting teams of three against each other. You can put together your own teams with people you already know (you even get an XP boot for doing just this), or you can be randomly assigned into teams. Like Overwatch, another game this title could be reasonably compared to, the characters are not just extremely distinct but each is designed to have a certain role in team combat.

The battleground

I could spend this entire piece going over all the different mechanics that make this game easy to play for newcomers. But, I can say that even if you don't have a headset, Legends makes it extremely easy to communicate with your teammates. Also, while this game certainly gives you the option to break away from your quad, don't do it. Success in this game doesn't come from just killing the other team, but keeping yours alive, as well.

While there's always room for improvement, this game is polished as hell. The entire time I played, I didn't come across a glitch or a frame rate drop (that I noticed, anyway), or any of the other bugs you'd expect from a free-to-play game of this ilk. This is really a top-notch experience.

And, yes, this is EA and, yes, it has got the microtransactions and lootboxes and such you expect from them... honestly, I didn't feel pressured to purchase any, or felt like I had to in order to succeed in the game. As I play it more, I may feel inclined to get some more coins and get some more stuff to personalize my game, which is a dumb way to spend money, but I'm kind of a schmuck so there.

By the way, as I mentioned in my news piece on this game, if you're playing on Xbox One and have an EA Access membership, the game starts you out with a bunch of free stuff, including 1000 coins - which is enough to unlock one new character and pick up a couple of lootboxes. I like that. PS Plus members also get a free pack of goodies but... meh.

Bloodhound, one of the classes ("Legends") playable right out of the gate

That being said, I played it on both systems and they both play pretty much the same - they both look good, run well, and are fun. I can't comment on the PC version or how it runs on Xbox One X/PS4 Pro, but if you can, comments are below, so have at it.

If this game sounds even remotely like it's in your wheelhouse, I say have at it. It won't cost you anything to try it and, if you love it, it won't cost you anything to keep playing it. We'll have to wait and see how it evolves but, for the moment, it's worth giving it a shot.