EA Releases New Battle Royale Video Game ‘Apex Legends’

Samuel Pappas, Staff Writer

“Apex Legends,” a new battle royale game from EA (the demonic cesspool who disguises themselves as a publisher), has been taking the world by storm, achieving 20 million players in about half the time it took me to get out of bed this morning.

The game is a rework of the systems used in “Titanfall 2” by Respawn Entertainment. Upon seeing the game for the first time, I was overjoyed since I thought I was looking at a new update for “Titanfall 2,” only to realize that the game I had once loved was gutted and remade into another “Dime-a-Dozen” battle royale with basic class systems.

The first “Titanfall” was a multiplayer-only launch title for the Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. A fun game to many, but lacking in content despite selling for full price. You take the role of a “Pilot,” a super soldier with several movement abilities such as wall running and using a grappling hook.

After racking up a few points, you can call in your “Titan,” a giant bulky robot equipped with all sorts of heavy weaponry. The game is balanced in such a way that pilots can outmaneuver Titans and chip away at their health with their superior speed, but getting into your very own Titan still makes you feel unstoppable until you realize your enemies can run circles around you.

“Titanfall” faced criticisms for its lack of content, leaving Respawn Entertainment to step up production for the sequel.

“Titanfall 2” launched in 2016 on all platforms, a detail that would have improved the game’s marketing due to it originally being an Xbox One exclusive. The game also launched between “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare” and “Battlefield 1,” which proved to work toward its detriment. EA was disappointed by the sales of “Titanfall 2” despite the game receiving favorable reviews.

I was one of those “favorable reviews,” as “Titanfall 2” was and still is my favorite shooter of the past five years.

The game launched with a single player campaign this time around, and to my surprise, it was so much fun that I beat it twice on the hardest difficulty. The levels are all designed to utilize the gunplay and movement to their full potential. It can be hard to take down five robots at once until you use your invisibility to get behind them and drop a well-placed grenade.

Each stage also introduces a new mechanic or element to a level. Turning on fans to make you float, jumping between massive rolling panels on an assembly line, switching between parallel realities to solve puzzles, etc. This is never a game where you’re just ‘killing the bad guys.’

The Multiplayer also builds on the systems that the original “Titanfall” established. New weapons, abilities, Titans and map designs all give the game added complexity.

I was never very interested in “Fortnite” or “PUBG,” so when “Apex Legends” came out, I wasn’t very optimistic about the future of “Titanfall.”

I’ve since put a few hours into Apex, and while I wouldn’t call myself a fan of it, I can enjoy the changes they bring to the genre, despite having to cut out many of the movement mechanics.

Vince Zampalla, CEO of Respawn Entertainment, announced on Twitter that more “Titanfall” content was coming in 2019. Whether that means a new game or just updates remains to be seen, but it makes me happy to see my favorite shooter getting some well-deserved attention.