Apex Legends

Multiplayer shooter in the "battle royale" genre with a first-person view in the Titanfall universe. The gameplay is focused on teamwork, where you can choose one of the characters and fight in a squad of 3 people. The project borrowed weapons and some gear from Titanfall 2, but lost several advantages — there are no titans, double jumps, or jetpacks here.

Apex Legends is not an original project, it uses many solutions borrowed from competitors. The match involves 60 players, divided into 20 teams of 3 players each.

Among the classic mechanics of "battle royales," one can note: the speed and dynamism of the gameplay; a huge map with a shrinking open area; a wide selection of weapons and the ability to install modifications on them; the ability to drop anywhere on the map; the need to constantly search for weapons, ammo, medkits, armor; periodically dropped high-class loot.

In addition, performing any action takes from 2 to 5 seconds. Like in PUBG: Battlegrounds , the carry inventory is heavily limited, allowing you to take a couple of medkits, batteries, grenades, and several magazines for each of the two carried "guns."

Among the alternative mechanics to the genre: choosing a specific character with their role before the match starts, which connects Apex Legends with Overwatch; each character has three abilities that have a greater impact on gameplay; teamwork — players helping each other have a better chance of winning ; close combat is practically useless.

Items in Apex Legends are divided into quality levels: common (gray), rare (blue), legendary (purple), and epic (gold). The higher the quality, the better the tactical and technical characteristics. There are only 2 types of armor — for the body and for the head, and this is not a vest, but a shield that can be recharged.

When a character's shield and health are completely depleted, they do not die but fall to their knees and bleed out. While teammates rush to revive the bleeding fighter, they can crawl away or defend themselves by deploying a knockdown shield. However, the enemy can take advantage of this vulnerable position and perform an effective fatality in close combat, and a box with the character's inventory will drop out.

In this case, there is still an option to revive the fallen teammate — for this, you need to take their respawn beacon from your inventory and load it at a special respawn point, after which they will reappear, but weapons and gear will have to be searched for again.

The events of Titanfall 2 ended several centuries ago, after a devastating war between the IMC and the Militia, the known worlds of the Frontier were plundered and abandoned — both factions fighting for control left them.

The action of Apex Legends takes place in the Outlands, an even wilder and unexplored region of space than the Frontier was. The few survivors invented the "Apex Games" — a bloody entertainment where legendary fighters from all over the galaxy participate.

Before being dropped, players are on a dropship and can suggest different drop points. Each territory may have loot of varying levels, and a support ship flies above with particularly valuable items.

After landing, squad members must quickly find weapons, ammunition, and gear that are scattered everywhere and located in easily noticeable crates. You must keep moving at all times — the quality of loot in untouched areas increases, and you can find missing components or replace them with higher quality items.

The developers of Apex Legends are not rushing to create a large set of huge maps but are gradually adding them. Within the same territory, the most fantastic landscapes coexist: swamps, rivers, deserts, forests and meadows, mountains and canyons, snowy fields and lava flows from volcanoes. They combine different types of buildings; in the game, you can encounter everything from shacks and wooden barns to reinforced concrete megacities and ultra-modern scientific and industrial complexes.

The release at the beginning of 2019 was met by players on the "Kings Canyon" map — an industrial world with small patches of swamps, forests, and deserts. In the second season, it was refined and diversified with new objects and some interactive elements, such as Leviathan giants hiding good loot, as well as Flyers carrying a supply container in their claws.

The start of the third season was on the "World's Edge" map — a warm place with geysers, "steam vents," and wide meadows, whose inhabitants used the energy from lava flows of a supervolcano for heating. The fall of an icy meteorite made this area uninhabitable but suitable for the "Apex Games." Thus, a new icy biome appeared in the game. An interactive element became a train with valuable loot.

However, "Kings Canyon" was not forgotten and was used on Halloween 2019 as an arena for the "Shadowfall" event. There were no teams; players fought to the death, but upon dying, they resurrected in the ranks of the army of the dead. Shadows killed any living character with one hit, but they themselves died from a couple of shots. When there were 10 legends left, they united into a single squad and headed to the evacuation point, while the dead needed to stop them before they could escape.

At the end of 2019, Apex Legends had 11 characters, 6 available immediately, while the others could be purchased for in-game currency or real money.

The division into classes (support, assault, soldier) is quite conditional — in battle, they all handle weapons and shoot equally well. Nothing prevents giving the fragile Wraith two machine guns, and the healthy Gibraltar two pistols. Moreover, all characters have the same running speed (with hidden weapons) and health pool, and equal-level shields provide the same amount of armor.

Each character has three abilities: passive, regular active, and super abilities that can be activated only a couple of times per match. A good understanding of your character and their abilities will make the player a valuable team member.

Not all classes are ready to offer a unique playstyle; half of them are similar to each other and are just regular positional shooters. This means that victory depends on the ability to win local skirmishes.

Some classes stand out, for example, Pathfinder with his grappling hook and ability to set up zip lines will be a valuable team member, capable of assault, escape, and reconnaissance. Caustic relies on his gas canisters and can be very useful for defense in enclosed spaces, but becomes an ordinary fighter in open areas.

Structurally, the battle royale in Apex Legends is not much different from other projects in this genre, except that a bit of luck is also required. We choose a character, drop in as a team at a point, search it for loot, and hope that it will be good and that there is no one nearby. After that, it’s simpler — a cyclical repetition between searching for loot and gunfights.

However, the game does not encourage killing — you can make it into the top three teams just by avoiding combat until the end. Many take advantage of this. To win, you will need photographic knowledge of the map, attentiveness, the ability to tactically manage each combat moment, and good old accurate shooting. The quality of the equipped items you and your teammates have will also affect the outcome of the battle — gold items have additional and extremely necessary bonuses in combat, which cannot be said about regular and uncommon items and upgrades.

During the battle, you need to adapt, change weapons, and pick up modifications for them. There is a wide selection of weapons, everyone will find something to their liking, although there are really only a few effective "guns," and some modifications may cause more harm than good. The balance between weapons is very well calibrated.

You can increase your chances of victory if team members help each other, do not separate and run far away, and also signal danger — a separate menu has been created for this, which is convenient in every situation.

For all activities during the match, players earn experience, which translates into levels. For each level, one in-game Apex container is awarded. In it, you can find cosmetic items to change your appearance, weapon skins, greetings, and fatalities. However, unique character skins and other cosmetics can only be purchased with real money in the in-game store.

In the year since its release, Apex Legends has received numerous changes:

Developers often experiment. For example, in one event, a solo mode was added where each of the 60 players fought for themselves. In another event, a mode with 30 teams and a couple of players in a squad appeared. None of them have been added permanently yet, but they may appear in the future.

For the New Year, players were pleased with an event in which three squads of three players captured a point. There were also dozens of unique cosmetic items as rewards for participation and victories.

Throughout 2019, the leveling system was revamped. The maximum level increased from one hundred to five hundred, and the number of Apex packs received during leveling was increased — 59 for the first hundred levels and another 140 on the way to five hundred. Players also receive 600 tokens for each new level, and for every hundredth level — a cool ranking badge.