Apex Legends – What The Heck Is It?

If you’ve never heard of Apex Legends, then please get your head out of the gutter and into the trending tab on social media. As of right now, it is the world’s most popular video game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You might be wondering, though, just how popular Apex is and why it is so trendy? Let me educate you with the player statistics. In 8 hours, it hit 1 million. In 3 days, it hit 10 million. In a week, it hit 25 million total players, with a concurrent count of 1-2 million. So far, the number looks like it won’t be slowing down anytime soon, and that’s a great thing. There’s even a handful of lads among Oratory Prep who play the game too, including me. So far, I’ve been having a blast on the game, learning about the different heroes and what they bring. So far, there are 8 “Legends” you can play as, each of them having their own passive, tactical, and ultimate abilities (an element similar to that of Overwatch). Considering how each squad drops in with 3 of these legends, it is absolutely necessary that you and your teammates figure out which legends work best for you.

First up, there’s Bloodhound, one of my personal favorites. Unlike other legends, he has technological tracking abilities that help to determine where enemies have been. His passive ability reveals hidden clues (the most recent ones from up to 60 seconds) around the entire map. His tactical and ultimate abilities work very similarly; his tactical ability allows a quick scan of hostiles in a small radius, and his ultimate ability highlights every hostile in the players’ field of view, while also granting a massive boost in speed.

Next up is the famed Gibraltar (the middle person in the picture provided). Compared to other legends, his abilities are more or less best suited for providing support during firefights and tense situations. His passive ability is an arm shield, allowing him to provide suppressive fire easily. His tactical, on the other hand, is a 15-second dome shield that allows protection from gunfire and bombardment, making healing and reviving easier than ever. His ultimate, best used in tense situations, calls down an air strike within a concentrated area.

The two support legends, Pathfinder and Lifeline, are rare to find if you squad up with random teammates (especially good ones at that). Lifeline is a combat medic, who heals and revives faster than other legends. She can also drop a small drone for easy healing or a care package for better loot. Pathfinder, on the other hand, is more suited for scouting and movement. His tactical and ultimate utilizes zip lines for fast movement and escape, and his passive allows him to determine where the next ring will close (if a scanner beacon is found nearby, which he will use to do so).

Wraith and Bangalore are more common in the game, due to their superb offensive capabilities. Wraith helps by using interdimensional portals and rifts that are best suited for flanking, holding back, or surprising the enemy. Wraith’s passive is also extremely helpful, as the voices in her head can tell you whether hostiles are aiming at you. Bangalore, on the other hand, has gained my respect because of her speed and smoke launcher abilities, which help to end fights quickly and tactfully. She also has the ability to call in her “Rolling Thunder” airstrike; it is, unfortunately, slower than Gibraltar’s ultimate, but can best be used to interrupt ongoing fights and finish pre-existing ones.

The last two legends (at the moment) each requires 12,000 Legend Tokens to unlock; easily unlockable when one plays the game more. The first is Mirage, the holographic trickster of the bunch. Using holo-technology to create temporary clones of himself, he can easily bamboozle any enemy and hide your true location. Caustic, on the other hand, is much darker, as he utilizes toxic gas to trap his enemies and slow them down.

Overall, Apex brings lots of new aspects to the battle royale genre, as it superbly mixes mechanics from games like Call of Duty, Titanfall, and Overwatch into one beautiful concoction. The gunplay is unlike any other game, there are so many tactical strategies available for use, and it doesn’t focus on cosmetics like Fortnite or PUBG. The movement is just unlike anything else too, as the easy to learn movement system is simple, yet intuitive in many ways; you can slide, ride zip lines, and vault over any object (does Fortnite have that? No!). Each character is charming in their own way through their backstory and quotes, and the game looks as if it is going to offer so much. So far, I have no complaints.