Apex Legends

A multiplayer shooter in the "battle royale" genre with a first-person view set in the Titanfall universe. The gameplay focuses 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, and 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," we can note: the speed and dynamism of gameplay; a huge map with a shrinking open area; a wide selection of weapons and the ability to attach modifications to them; the option to drop anywhere on the map; the need to constantly search for weapons, ammo, medkits, armor; periodically dropped high-class loot.

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

Among the alternative mechanics to the genre: the choice of a specific character with their role before the match begins, 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 almost 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 such a 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 warring factions left them in their struggle for control.

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 created the "Apex Games" — a bloody entertainment where legendary fighters from all over the galaxy participate.

Before the drop, 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. It's important to keep moving — 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, and in the game, you can find 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 the 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 the supervolcano for heating. The fall of an icy meteorite made this land uninhabitable but suitable for conducting 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 it 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 could kill any living character with one hit, but they themselves died from a couple of shots. When only 10 legends remained, they united into a single squad and headed to the evacuation point, while the undead needed to stop them before they could escape.

At the end of 2019, there were 11 characters in Apex Legends, 6 available immediately, while the others could be purchased with 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. Additionally, all characters have the same running speed (with weapons stowed) and health pool, while equal-level shields provide equal 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 a 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 the 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 no one is nearby. After that, it’s simple — a cyclical repetition between searching for loot and firefights.

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 for you and your teammates 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 they like, although there are not many truly effective "guns," and some modifications can cause more harm than good. The balance between weapons is very well tuned.

You can increase your chances of victory if team members help each other, do not split up 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 was introduced. None of these have appeared on a permanent basis yet, but they may in the future.

For the New Year, players were delighted with an event where 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 100 to 500, and the number of Apex packs received during leveling was increased — 59 for the first hundred levels and another 140 on the way to 500. Also, for each new level, players receive 600 tokens, and for every hundredth level — a cool ranked badge.