The Power of Apex

On February 4, 2019 the developers of Titanfall and Titanfall 2 presented a new side entry into the series. Except for a single Tweet from professional leakboi Rod Breslau, aka Slasher, which essentially detailed every aspect of the game, nobody knew anything. This is, of course, with the core exception that everyone knew. All it took was an event with streamers and influencers like Shroud and Dr DisRespect to leak it to someone not under an NDA.

But here’s the thing: the game is really damn good. The HP Podcast crew talks more about it here, but there is a lot to say about this new game. As a consummate player of both of the first two entries of this series, I’ve also already spent several hours with the game and achieved my first two Championships.

Titanfall and Titanfall 2 are both games known for the trademark Respawn FPS gameplay. The gun variation, the satisfying crunch of melee, and the freedom of maneuverability that created a level of verticality that invented a new way to play in FPS’. But most of all, it created a grand epic scale of battle unlike any other game with its self-titled Titanfall titles. Calling in a Titan, a massive mechanized weapon of war, was incredible to not only fight in, but fight against. The awareness needed to ensure your Titan’s survival as several bodies flew through the air in order to land on you, tear out batteries, and drop grenades into the empty vents.

But Apex Legends has changed the dynamic by quite a bit. In the Titanfall games you take the role of a Pilot, someone chosen as an elite of the elite, and one of the few members of the respective factions to partner with an AI to become the Titans for which the franchise is known. In Apex Legends, however, you play as the other men and women that populate the franchise. Bloodhound, a member of a clan of elite trackers. Wraith, a master of the warp-arts of assassination. Alongside these two there are a total of 6 Legends available at launch, with two additional Legends available for purchase. None of them are pilots, specifically by design for better and worse.

Without Titans and Pilots, there is a distinct lack of what made players feel powerful in the two primary entries into the franchise. The lack of wall climbing creates a lack of the vertical nuance that made traversing around a map so easy and locomotive. The absence of Titans leaves combat feeling far from an epic standoff between two pilots, and creates a deeply nuanced to the battlefield.

What it now lacks in scale, it makes up for in grit. Every single weapon is highly changeable with attachments for just about every gun. With the different styles of all the guns returning each match feels diverse. Different variations of each weapon type have different strengths and weaknesses from each other.

The abilities of the different Legends act as diverse classes centered around their unique skill set. Lifeline, the medic, is able to drop a health drone -freeing herself and squadmates to be able to regain health while focusing fire on the enemy. Pathfinder, a robot scout, has a grappling hook that he is able to deploy at will with a small cooldown. Or, if your squad is in a tough position, you’re able to drop one down for the entire group to use.

The variance in the Legend classes, the level of options in gun choice, and the extremely tight gameplay both in and out of combat, are simply incredible. Despite my initial hesitation, I was blown away by a game that left behind the things that made it a phenomenal standard FPS. It has become a wonderful entry into an already crowded Battle Royal genre.

I’m clearly not alone in thinking highly of the game, but also in my blissful enjoyment of the game. As revealed in the EA Q3 Earnings Call, via Yahoo! Finance, “…what I can say is that in the first 24 hours, we’ve had over 2.5 million unique users, training fast toward 3 million unique users, and nearly 600,000 peak and current users in the middle of a Tuesday, so it’s very early, but the response to the game has been very, very strong. We’ve been the No. 1 viewed game on Twitch since launch, and player sentiment seems to be very, very high right now.”

Electronic Arts is a number crunching publisher and, if this call was anything to speculate over, it’s that there is a tremendous amount of trust being placed on the team over at Respawn. It shows in this game. With an art style that seems to blend a feeling of TellTale meets Borderlands, it never feels as cartoonish as Fortnite, nor as realistic as PUBG. The terrain of King’s Canyon varies greatly, with massive metal complexes blending into watery marshland, vacant empty canyons, and ruined dessert.

But what really sets the game apart is the lack of a normal feature in other Battle Royal games. There’s no solo mode. Every game of Apex is comprised of a squad of 3 dropping and, between in-game voice chat options or a very elaborate visual ping system, it never feels like being alone is a viable option. My first Championship was with a squad of randoms with whom I just had a lot of luck. My second Championship later that night was with two friends. In both matches, there was a tremendous amount of communication, but only while playing with my friends did I utter a single word.

The first game I spent pinging various items that I thought my teammates might want that I didn’t. I dropped and pinged shield batteries when I saw my squadmate was low. When I found a nice sniper attachment, I pinged and helped fit my group with the best equipment we could find. We pinged enemy positions, completed relatively simple strategies, with a random Wraith and Pathfinder. I don’t recall their PSN names, nor do I know if I want to.

My second Championship was completely different. We were in constant vocal communication, still using the ping system quite extensively, but key vocal communication changed how we played with each other – with quick vocal callouts being more useful than momentary pings. It was a heated battle with constant communication and numerous comebacks, with each player being knocked down at least once. It was dirty and it was scrappy in comparison to the precision of my first Championship.

Respawn has captured the proverbial lightning in the bottle, and they don’t seem keen on letting it out. See you in King’s Canyon.

To hear more from the Handsome Phantom crew on Apex Legends, check out Episode 5 of the Handsome Phantom Podcast!