What on Earth Just Happened: Apex Legends

I had a completely different plan for this post, but here I am on a Sunday night writing about a game that I didn't even know existed when I started planning for this round of articles. This time, the fact that I am writing in the evening has nothing to do with my schedule, or my habit of procrastination, but rather because this game just came out, and I wanted to experience it at its worst and its best. And I've achieved both of these; after a large part of the late morning/early afternoon spent playing this game, as well as some gameplay on Saturday, I have reached both a peak and a valley, with four wins in a row followed by a period of drought where me and my friend failed to even consistently get kills, let alone a win. And it seems that everyone else is playing this game; Apex has hit 10 million players within its first 72 hours, easily beating Fortnite's previous record for free to play games (10 million in two weeks). And yet, up until its release on Monday, February 4th, almost no one knew it was coming out. Some rumors and leaks were spreading around in the week leading up to its release, but EA and Respawn (publisher and developer companies respectively) kept it almost completely under wraps, not even running any sort of advertising campaign until the game released. I have never seen this before, and I'm shocked. So what happened? How did Apex take the gaming world by storm? And is it worth the hype?

There are two reasons for Apex's success. First is EA's advertising strategy: while Apex wasn't advertised until release, it was released in the relatively "dry" period that occupies January and February. Most game developers look to release games either before Christmas or later on, closer to spring break and Easter, when more students have the time to play video games. Because of this, Apex is really the only big game that recently came out/is going to come out soon. In addition to this, as soon as Apex came out EA payed a bunch of streamers and content creators to stream Apex, creating a spark that lit the firestorm of popularity that Apex is sitting in right now.

Much like a fire can't start without fuel, an influx of content about a game can't make people play the game if the game is bad, and this is where EA's strategy really shined. Unlike their normal approach of practically throwing a game in your face through aggressive advertising, EA trusted that a good game would have a good response and by extension good revenue, and so far the first part at least is working. While the game is still relatively new (and therefore economic statistics on it don't exist yet) the game has so many players that there is no way that EA and Respawn aren't making a tidy sum of money off of this. I wrote in my Red Dead Redemption 2 article that I hope the gaming industry learns from RDR2 that all you need to make money is a good game, and I really think EA may have learned their lesson. EA has done some really shady stuff over the last couple of years, so I'm a little hesitant to give them a "good job" just yet, but my opinion of them has gone up significantly. 

So I've already stated that Apex is good, but what makes it so good? Well, the Battle Royale genre suffers from an interesting phenomenon for a genre with so much saturation: specialization. There are two main games other than Apex currently in the BR genre, and those are Fortnite and PUBG. Both of these game take drastically different approaches, and both definitely have their audiences. Fortnite's cartoonish graphics draw in relatively young kids, while the whole "building" concept drives off more hardcore shooter fans as suddenly it's not so much about shooting as it is about building. PUBG draws the simulation fanbase, and an older fanbase, with its militaristic, realistic graphics and real world weapons. But again, hardcore shooter fans are turned away by how slow it is, and the fact that you can go an entire game without seeing a single enemy only to die to the first enemy you encounter because he saw you first. Apex is sitting really pretty right now: it appeals to everyone. Fortnite fan? Great. Apex's bright colors, customizable looks for characters and rewarding gunplay will be greatly appreciated by you. PUBG fan? A little less great for you, but you'll enjoy a sudden increase in action, combined with the more tactical side brought on by the unique characters in Apex. But the majority of Apex's fanbase are the shooter fans: people who would normally be playing something like Call of Duty or Battlefield or Rainbow Six Siege. And why is that? Gunplay. The gunplay in Apex is amazing. First off, you can slide/zipline from place to place, and then once you're there you are dodging and weaving in between buildings, firing at enemies with guns that have very satisfying animations and noises. And when you hit/kill someone, little colored numbers show up to tell you how much damage you've dealt. Get enough kills, and you're rewarded by a notification that is given to the whole server that says you're the Kill Leader. It's a first-person shooter fan's dream, crossed with Battle Royale player's dream, and all set in the Titanfall universe, which is one of the most underrated games of the modern era as far as I'm concerned (review coming).

In case you haven't figured out by now, I love Apex. I'm enjoying it a ton right now, and it has finally (though probably temporarily) supplanted Siege as my go-to game. The question really is how long will this game last? And will it still be fun after a couple of weeks? The ball's in your court, EA/Respawn. Please don't mess it up.