Apex Legends

Game'scover

About the Game

Apex Legends is a first person shooter battle royale game developed by Respawn Entertainment. The studio is very well known for their work on other first person shooters such as the Titanfall series and the Starwars Jedi series. Needless to say this gave the game an extra boost on it's reputation as the studio established a massive fan base and in general is well known for it's shootting games. Apex was published by Electronic Arts also known as EA. The game was release in february 2019 for the Ps4 and Xbox. Two years later in 2019 the game received it's Nintendo Switch port. Once again a year later in 2022 the game received it's next gen release for the Xbox series X/S and the Playstation 5 release as well as a Phone version which came with its own exclusive hero. The game does support Cross-platform within the major consoles. Android and Ios devices do not play together with the consoles. Apex has been out for atleast four years and ever since its first inception in 2019 the game has been nominated from plenty of game awards for various reasons and also won a couple throughout the years (2019-2020-2021-2022).

Another thing worth mentioning about the game is the fact that the developer still support the game with various of cosmeticks, hero inclusions, new seasonal game modes and over all brand new seasons (each comming with maps/weapon/skins etc.). The game does support the season pass system and rewards both the players who purchase it but also the people who simply play for fun.

The Story of Apex Legends

The game does not have a story mode however this does not mean that it doesnt have any lore for it's world and it's heroes. Very similar to another major First Person shooter, Overwatch, the game does have lore however it is hidden within the in game hero interactions, cosmeticks, cinematics that are uploaded on their official youtube channel/website/ other gaming news networks. Furthermore, with each new season pass, the game adds a layer where the player can listen and read lore with dialogues. Pretty much, the hero's portait will appear as they discuss events with other heroes.

Personally i cannot pretend to be invested on the lore, duo to the fact that i enjoy play the game with my friends. I am aware of certain facts such as, Loba wanting to kill the Revenant because he killed her mother or Loba and Valkyrie dating each other . At the same time there's lore behind two friends, Octane and Lifeline who grew up together from two different rich and powerful families. The two despite their families and didnt want to inherit their jobs. We also get to see how Octane injured his leg and what lead Lifeline to join Apex. There is lore for almost every hero in the game and for every hero there is always a media influencer who probably gathered all the lore and made it into a story. Last but not least as mentioned the game is constantly updated which means more lore can be added at any point for already existing heroes or even new ones.


Game screenshot of heroes

What is Apex?(Gameplay)

Apex is a first person shooter battle royale where the player has to shoot their way in order to establish themselves as the number one team. The player can choose to group up with one person or two new people in teams of two or teams of three. The players can choose one hero from the the ones available to them. The same hero cannot be selected twice within the same team indicating that there cannot be two/three Mirages in the same team. Each hero comes with two abilities and a special. These are :

  1. A Passive ability: These abilities are trigger automatically and differs with each hero. Eg, Loba can see high rarity items through walls, Lifeline can ressurect from far away,Bloodhound can trace enemy tracks to locate them and others have their own.
  2. An Active skill:These are abilities that the player can trigger by pressing the appropritae button. Once a skill is used, they have a cooldown before being available again. Eg, Loba can teleport by throwing her translocator, Octane can sprint faster than anyone, Crypto can fly a drone etc
  3. The ultimate Attack: These are the heroes ultimate attacks that charge slowly by time or by using in game items. Ults differ and thus their cooldowns are also different. Eg, Loba can open a store to get bullets guns etc, this ability charges faster than Mirage's whose Ult spawns fake clones to act as distractions.
The heroes skills can be viewed by hovering over them in the hero gallery and hovering over to their skills. The heroes themselves are also scattered within different classes such as:
  1. Assault: Legends who re very good in combat
  2. Runners: Legends who re capable of moving their heroes around
  3. Recon: Legends who can get the advatage over the others before getting into combat
  4. Support: Legends who re here to help their teammates by healing the team and give them better equipment
  5. Pioneers: Legends who can camp somewhere and set their equipment to fortify their territory.
The classification of the heroes doesnt mean that they re weaker than other but more or less their skills are based around them. Last but not least, each hero has an armor health and a health bar. If the shield breaks it's nothing but if the health drops to zero then the player is down on their knees for a limited time, in which the teammate can ressurect them unless the enemy completely finish off the 'downed' teammate.

Game screenshot from players POV
Once the game begins, sixty players are onboard an airship which flies above a radomly selected map. The players drop around the map with the goal of finding the right equipment in order to begin the hunt for other players. In some cases, players drop in the same building ending in a chase of who will pick a weapon first and is capable of defeating the others. The maps are filled with various guns, ammo packs, granades, weapon modifications (scopes,mags etc), armor/shields and support items such as shield regenerations, health packs and backpacks capable of carrying more items. All items can be found lying around or within loot crates located around the map. There are different type of weapons such as weapons that use light ammo, heavy ammo, energy ammo, snipper ammo, arrows and shotgun ammo. With the same logic, the weapon modifications themselves support different kind of weapons such as extended snipper mag or snipper scope which can only be equiped in a snipper. Furthermore, each weapon has a certain type of color indicating the type of cosmeticks/ammo the players can pick and equip. Furthermore, armor,shields,modifications and backpacks come in various colours indiacting their strength. For example:
  1. Color White: represents the common item which is also the weakest. For example, a white backpack has 12 slots
  2. Blue Backpack: represents a higher rarity superior of the white version/ Eg a blue backpack has 14 slots
  3. Purple Backback: represents an even higher rarity. Eg, A purple backpack can now carry 16 items
  4. Gold Backpack: represents a special rarity equal to the purple one with extra boosts.Eg, gold backpack has 16 slots like the purple, but adds a passive of being revived with half the Ho and shield.
The example above had the backpack as an example, but there are more items that follow the same logic such as mags,scopes and armors. Last but least weapons and armors have another rarity of color Red which represents the ultimate power. The red items, do not drop around and they cannot be found lying around the map. To elaborate, each time a player hits an enemy the armor upgrades on it's own. A golden/purple armor will level up to red with no more upgrade to be found. the weapon on the other hand can be found in care packages near the end of the round.

Once all the players fall of the airship, there is a timer which will start to count down to zero. Once zero is reached the map shrinks and the players will have to run in the location that the map shows. The ring can close up to 4 times. Each time the map shrinks, the "storm" located outside of the circle deals damage to the health of the player (NOT the shield as it is being ignored). Each ring deals greater damage cabale of killing anyone located outside. The team that is the last standing is declared the winner. If a hero drops, the have a limited amount of time to be picked up by their teammates unless the enemy fully kills the player. If a player dies, the teammates can pick up their banner before it expires in order to take it over to the respawn beacon in order to ressurect them. A player who died leaves their deathbox on their spot where anyone can loot it's content.

The movement of the game is very smooth and the maps are well design allowing the player to have an amazing experience platforming around. The guns all feel very different and are ver unique.

Gammodes

The game offers various gamemodes which are available in different seasons. The first gamemode is Arena mode. In arena two teams of three are capable of picking items within a certain budget in order to fight each other. Each round offers a higher budget based on the performance of the player. The team which will win three rounds will be declared the winners. A different game mode is Capture the Zone. Two teams of 12 are placed in a new arena with 3 different bases that require the team to capture the bases. While a base it's captured, it rewards the team points with the goal of reaching 100% first. Another gamemode, has a passing train which has four teams of three competing as to who will capture it. Each team has a bar that charges slowly given the fact that the team is in control of it. There are a few more gamemodes that are available in different times and i would recommend to play them in order to experience them yourselves.

Cosmeticks and Unlockables

Apex offers a variety of items that the player can unlock which are mostly cosmeticks. However there is one minor issue which is good but also bad. To elaborate the player can spent in game currency to unlock the new heroes instead of purchasing them with real money. This is good because everyone can obtain the heroes if they play the game but also slightly unfair as some heroes may feel abit overpowered. The game has three types of currency, blue crystals, cred crystals and coins. Blue crystals allow the player to purchase cosmeticks which can also be found in loot packs. These cosmeticks are Hero skins, Weapon skins, sprays, voicelines, weapon keychains, emotes and kill animations. Moreover, the red crystals are only obtainable when a player levels up. Each level rewards the player 600 crystals and the cost of the heroes are 12000 each. The coins on the other hand are only obtained with real money and can only be used to purchase items from the store. Items can also be found in the two season pass the game offers. A season pass that unlocks items each time the player levels up the season pass by doing daily missions. This season pass requires the player to spent real money in order to obtain it. Last but not least as again mentioned there's a free seasonpass with less flashy cosmeticks which is available for everyone each season.

Game 's victory screenshot

Overall

Overall Apex legends is a unique battle royale that made the game stand out in an era where battle royale games where popping left and right. The game has interesting characters with unique abilities which result in a pleasant experience. The movement of the game is smooth that allows the player to freely move around in areas, zip their way across the distance and climb on top of mountains. It offers a great ammount of different weapons that differ alot among them. Mechanic wise, the game is very simple which can make anyone jump straight into the game and enjoy it. The extra gamemodes themselves are very enjoyable and very different than the typical game mode. The game has minor issues such as the fact that heroes are not unlocked from day one and someone will have to pay for them or grind for them. Some heroes are slighty Overpowered in the beginning and can change the pace of the game. Furthermore the cosmeticks are not easily earned as the Apex loot crates are not as common as in other games and usually they drop common items which are also items from any of the heroes. To elaborate, a loot may drop items for the hero of Crypto even if the player does not own Crypto. Last but not least small glitches are usually dealt with very late if at all. For example, Loba's teleportation sometimes fails to work, not allowing Loba to teleport away safely and receive all the enemy hits.

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