Everything you need to know about Apex Legends — Stryda
Published: Oct 4 2021 for a live service game, where some information and numbers are always subject to change.
Would you believe me if I told you Apex Legends took inspiration from Beyoncé?
How Apex Legends came to be
When Respawn Entertainment was looking for ways to expand the Titanfall Universe, among the many ideas, a battle royale setting was the most intriguing to the team.
At this point in time, EA hadn’t even acquired Respawn, so the battle royale idea actually has nothing to do with EA. Respawn executives say they had to convince EA to allow them to make a battle royale game, instead of Titanfall 3 (at which point you can literally hear the disgruntled Titanfall fanbase noises) and started working on what would eventually become Apex Legends.
Acquiring enough creative space to make a battle royale game, Respawn started on exploring how Titanfall’s gameplay mechanics and lore would adapt to a battle royale environment. During the final months of development, it was time to make the decision on the name of the game and how to market it.
Maybe in another reality we could be playing Titanfall 3, but in this one, it was decided that Apex Legends would be the name of our beloved battle royale game. So, even before anyone outside of the studio knew of its existence, Apex Legends had a downside: it was not Titanfall 3. Respawn had to come up with a solution that would spare them from the wrath of the fanbase and release date was fast approaching.
In this article, I will talk about everything you need to know about Apex Legends. So follow me and ponder the question: When did Apex Legends come out? And seriously, what’s the deal with Beyoncé?
Apex Legends was released on February 4, 2019. What blew everyone’s minds was that there was no prior marketing or mention of this game before the release. The marketing director of Respawn, Arturo Castro, considered the possible negative fanbase reaction to the game if they started marketing it months ahead, solely because it wasn’t Titanfall 3. Also, battle royales were on the rise that year and a lot of people would have thought “yeah, just another battle royale” so the marketing campaign would gather more negative bias than positive.
At that point, Castro came up with the brilliant idea of not making any marketing campaign. This idea was inspired by Beyoncé suddenly releasing her self-titled album without any prior marketing a couple of years back. Beyoncé’s “no-marketing” marketing made a great impression and sparked curiosity among the fans. Castro insisted that suddenly releasing their new battle royale game would create a similar reaction and would save them from dealing with disgruntled (there really isn’t a better word to describe the Titanfall fanbase) Titanfall community before releasing the game.
As we’re seeing now, Apex Legends has reached 100 million players, so I’m sure Arturo Castro is feeling pretty vindicated.
What does it take to become a legend?
Now let’s talk about Apex Legends and you. Yes, you. You’re here to learn about the game and improve your game to get that win, yes? To do that, you’ll need to know everything, every little detail to get the most out of your gaming platform. For example, you can refer to our Best Apex Legends settings for competitive play article to improve your PC’s performance while playing.
You also need to know that Apex Legends takes quite a bit of space in your disk drive. The official website says that Apex Legends takes 22GB of disk space, but constant updates and additions to the game’s content also add to its size. Steam says 56GB of disk space is required for Apex Legends. This, however, is also not set in stone-or in this case-disk. So make sure to have ample space in your disk to prevent any performance issues while playing Apex Legends.
Installing your games on SSDs is also a known way to improve gaming performance. SSDs act much faster than HDDs, and while this difference is usually observed on loading screen times, your overall FPS rates will also improve by using an SSD.
You see, playing Apex Legends on a higher level of competition requires a well-built, high-performance PC. But of course, these are all there to help you put your skills out there without any hiccups. Once you manage to get Apex Legends to work smoothly, what happens after that is entirely up to you. We’ll also talk about improving your skills in this article, so don’t worry.
Another technical aspect you should know about Apex Legends is that it uses Valve’s Source Engine, but in a heavily modified way. Titanfall 2 also uses Source Engine, but Apex Legends is a battle royale and takes place on a huge map where you should be able to see as far as you can. Respawn remedies this by modifying the Source Engine for you to be able to see great distances, but the game also utilizes dynamic resolution technology to keep the frame rate from falling to dangerous numbers in lower-end PCs and consoles.
Create your signature style
Speaking of dangerous numbers, have you seen Mirage’s Heirloom? It’s fabul…- fabulast…- it’s super cool! As you’ll remember from our Apex Legends 101: Chapter 2 article, melee attacking is quite important and a great emergency solution in close combat. So what’s cooler than taking down your opponents with a flying kick? Doing it in style, of course!
All hail the high-speed King of Cool. Image source: Respawn Entertainment.
In Apex Legends, there are Heirloom Sets you can acquire by completing their respective Collection Events. So far, the available Heirloom Sets in Apex Legends are Wraith, Bloodhound, Lifeline, Pathfinder, Octane, Mirage, Caustic, Gibraltar, Bangalore, Revenant, and Rampart. In this article, we’ll also talk about each of these Heirloom Sets.
You can also gather Heirloom Shards from Apex Packs to craft your own Heirloom sets. The chance of getting Heirloom Shards from an Apex Pack is stated to be lower than 1%, but it has a pity system. After opening 499 Apex Packs with no Heirloom, your 500th pack is guaranteed to drop Heirloom Shards. Then you can proceed to the Heirloom Store and craft one of the available Heirloom Sets. Keep in mind that if you somehow managed to unlock all available Heirloom Sets, you won’t be able to receive any more shards even if you open your 500th pack. Also, getting Heirloom Shards from a pack will not make that pack expire, and you’ll be able to open it one more time.
An Heirloom Set consists of a signature melee weapon, a unique voice line, and a unique banner pose for that character. After equipping it, the Heirloom weapon replaces your melee attack and has a special idle animation when not attacking. Heirloom weapons deal the same damage as regular punches and kicks, but they give you the only other thing you need other than your skills in Apex Legends: style.
Which Heirloom to pick
For those of you that can’t decide which Heirloom Set is cooler, here’s a basic breakdown of each of them.
Wraith’s Heirloom Set gives you the Void Kunai and a super-cool voice line that says “You know what I look like. Come find me.” As well as opponents, this might also be a call to the other Wraiths, considering her history of running into other versions of herself from other dimensions.
Bloodhound’s Heirloom Set gives you the Raven’s Bite, an ax that glows red and has the semblance of a raven on it. This once again points towards Bloodhound’s connection to Norse Mythology. Raven is the iconic familiar of Odin, who Bloodhound frequently mentions as “the Allfather,” and the ax is the signature weapon of many Viking warriors.
The bird theme is subtle. Image source: Respawn Entertainment.
Lifeline’s Heirloom Set gives you a pair of Shock Sticks, which refers to Lifeline’s other passion besides engaging in a blood sport: drumming. Lifeline also uses her sticks to take out opponents in one of her finishers. Her unique voice line says, “Check yo self — or wreck yo self,” which is a line from Ice Cube’s song “Check Yo Self” from his 1992 album, The Predator. I think we can safely say that Lifeline’s musical taste has a wide range, which is commendable.
Pathfinder’s Heirloom Set gives you a pair of Boxing Gloves; which refers to, well, his huge interest in boxing. For a wholesome MRVN model, Pathfinder is VERY keen on knocking people out with his fists. Pathy, that’s not how you high five!
Aww. I can’t stay mad at you. Image source: Respawn Entertainment.
Pathfinder also gets a very long voice line, and at one point, he realizes people have already stopped listening. For some reason, I can relate.
Octane’s Heirloom Set gives you the Butterfly Knife, which also comes with a Stim needle that Octane can inject himself with. He gets a voice line that says, “Run fast. Hit fast. Win fast,” which is the tagline of my How to Play Octane article.
Mirage’s Heirloom Set gives you an award. Literally. A reference to Mirage’s real name, Elliott Witt, his Heirloom weapon is called Too Much Witt, and it’s a golden trophy in Mirage’s image. The description reads, “Best Competitor in a Battle Royale — Based on skill, but mostly looks,” which 100% absolutely doesn’t seem like Mirage made this trophy for himself. He also gets a voice line that refers to him being able to create multiple mirror images of himself and enjoying this fact.
Caustic’s Heirloom Set gives you the Death Hammer. Caustic’s not known for his subtlety, so the name fits. It’s a hammer with a skull on it, and it’s full of Nox gas, which emits from the Hammer when used but only for cosmetic reasons. He also gets a voice line that says, “I look forward to getting my hands on you.” which, again, is probably aimed at both the opponents and the hammer itself. To be fair, the hammer does look really cool.
Gibraltar’s Heirloom Set gives you the War Club, an ancient weapon referencing Gibraltar’s Polynesian heritage. The War Club is gifted to Gibraltar by his ex-boyfriend Nikolas Gentile and has a red glow around it. You also receive the voice line that says “When this is over, they’ll all know the name ‘Gibraltar.’” reminding us that while he’s here to protect his friends, he’s also here for the glory.
Bangalore’s Heirloom Set gives you Cold Steel, a Pilot’s Data Knife from Titanfall but with gold elements on it. Bangalore is always ready to fight, and being out of ammo doesn’t break her morale, as long as she has the Cold Steel by her side. You also receive the voice line that says, “Hope you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty” which emphasizes Bangalore’s willingness to do whatever it takes to win.
Revenant’s Heirloom Set gives you the Dead Man’s Curve, a two-handed scythe in line with Revenant’s original design. It has a glowing blade and obviously references Revenant as an angel of death, existing solely to take lives. The Heirloom voice line, “You don’t want to see this up close, skin bag,” also points towards this. Revenant’s here to take your life, and if you’re close enough to see his scythe, your time’s about to run out.
Rampart’s Heirloom Set gives you the Problem Solver, an electric wrench. But wait, there’s more! This handy wrench also has a portable gumball dispenser, so that Rampart isn’t bored to death when not fighting. The Problem Solver also has a unique animation where Rampart uses one of Octane’s mechanical legs to hit, which is the only attack animation to utilize any of the other Legends’ body parts. The voice line says, “I make things by hand, and kill things by hand,” which doesn’t really require much explanation. Rampart and her inventions will either take you out or help you fly by utilizing parts of your dead father’s Titan.
Currency in Apex Legends
Apart from Heirloom Sets, you can add style to your skills by purchasing or crafting a wide variety of skins in Apex Legends. You can acquire these skins by purchasing them with Apex Coins or Legend Tokens. Apex Coins are the premium currency of Apex Legends, which can be bought via real money. You can also get Apex Coins by leveling up your Premium Battle Pass, which requires an initial Apex Coin payment to be unlocked. But don’t worry, finishing the Premium Battle Pass gives you more than enough Apex Coins to get the next season’s Premium Battle Pass. So as long as you keep playing Apex Legends, you can unlock Premium Battle Passes each new season without any further spendings. This way, you can focus your efforts on G-Loot challenges to earn even more money with your skills.
Apex Coins can also be used to acquire limited in-game content such as Collection Events, which in itself leads to acquiring an Heirloom Set as I mentioned. You can use Apex Coins to buy Apex Packs to increase your chances of getting the skins, banners, or charms you want and try your luck at acquiring Heirloom Shards. Plus, each Apex Pack you open means you’re one pack closer to receiving your 500th pack Heirloom Shards.
Legend Tokens, on the other hand, are acquired by leveling up. You are awarded 600 Legend Tokens every time you level up. You can unlock new Legends by spending 12000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins. As you play regularly, you’ll realize that Legend Tokens pile up faster than Respawn releases new Legends. You can spend these excess Legends Tokens at the Apex Store to acquire alternative versions of certain Legend skins, as long as you already have that particular base skin.
Last but not least, the third and the most user-friendly currency in Apex Legends is the Crafting Materials. With crafting materials, you can craft any craftable cosmetic from holo-sprays to finishers without having to spend any Apex Coins or Legend Tokens. Crafting materials can be acquired from Apex Packs and the Battle Pass. Crafting materials from Apex Packs have four rarities, and each rarity equals to half of the skins in the same rarity. For example, crafting a legendary skin costs 1200 materials and if you get a legendary crafting material drop from an Apex Pack, you’ll get 600 materials.
The Legendary skins from the Fight Night event sure do catch the eye. Image source: Respawn Entertainment.
Apex Packs and Battle Pass
So how do you get Apex Packs? And what’s included in the Battle Pass? We talked about Heirloom Sets and Apex Coins, so it’s time to talk about perhaps the most important part of your journey into the Apex Legends cosmetics. The Battle Pass is your main source for cosmetics in Apex Legends. You can level up your Battle Pass by completing daily and weekly challenges. You can reroll one daily challenge for free per day; further rerolls cost Legend Tokens. Also, you can’t reroll weekly challenges.
There are free rewards that can be acquired simply by leveling up your Battle Pass, and there are premium rewards that can be acquired by purchasing the Premium Battle Pass. As I mentioned in the Apex Coins section, the Premium Battle Pass rewards include enough Apex Coins to buy the next Premium Pass without making any further spending. Also, since your Battle Pass will be leveling up throughout the season, you can buy the Premium Battle Pass at any point to receive the Premium rewards retroactively. This is based on your Battle Pass level, of course, and is limited to the season you bought the Premium Pass in.
Other than Apex Coins, Battle Pass can include Apex Packs, loading screens, banners, trackers, voice lines, Legend and weapon skins, and all sorts of cosmetic items related to its season. Speaking of, what’s a season? A season in Apex Legends is a 3-month event that pushes the overarching story forward, updates the maps (even brings the fight to new maps at times,) brings a new Legend to the fold, expands the narrative, and of course, presents new loot. There’s a new Battle Pass with each season and each season has a theme related to the Legend released that season. For example, in Season 9, Valkyrie (real name: Kairi Imahara, voiced by the amazing Erika Ishii) brought his father’s legacy to the Apex Games, which was presented as Titan-themed skins, a cinematic trailer where Valkyrie faced Kuben Blisk, and in-game cosmetics based on Valkyrie’s Japanese roots.
The other way to acquire cosmetics is by opening Apex Packs. Apex Packs are your typical loot boxes. When you open one, you’re presented with 3 items of varying rarities. You can get anything from a common cosmetic item to Heirloom Shards when opening an Apex Pack. The only exception to this is the event items that can only be grabbed from event packs or completing event objectives. Regular Apex Packs cannot drop limited-time items, but as I mentioned, they can drop Heirloom Shards for you to craft your own Heirloom Set later.
One great thing about Apex Packs is that they cannot contain duplicate cosmetics. While they will just give you the crafting materials instead of a duplicate, it’s still better not to get duplicate drops all the time. This also saves you from the process of dismantling duplicate items into crafting materials etc., to take the least amount of your time.
You will regularly get an Apex Pack for leveling up your account, with a rate of:
- Level 2–20: One pack every level
- Level 22–300: One pack every two levels
- Level 305–500: One pack every five levels
Each Apex Pack will contain at least one rare item, so the worst-case scenario is getting 2 common and 1 rare item.
There are also Thematic Apex Packs, which contain cosmetic items for specific Legends they relate to. A Mirage Pack will give you at least one non-duplicate Mirage item, which is ironic because you know… Mirage… Duplicates… Moving on.
How big is Apex Legends?
Now, as I mentioned in the beginning, Apex Legends became a battle royale giant in a relatively short time period. With 100 million players strong, Apex Legends is also notorious for its server instability. While the servers usually vary from stable to unplayable at times, new seasons and collection events are usually the biggest offenders in terms of server sustainability. But Apex Legends is such a big game with literally tens of millions of players, so why is it always this unstable? Unfortunately, finding the exact answer to that question doesn’t seem possible for now. But it brings another question to the table: With so many players and so many things to purchase, how much money does Apex Legends make? It’s been reported that Apex Legends has earned over 1 Billion Dollars since its launch, with a good quarter of 2021 to go. This apparently exceeded even Respawn and EA’s expectations.
Of course, Covid-19 Pandemic and people having to stay home all the time helped video games a lot. Apex Legends, a free-to-play game, is a prime example of this. Due to the pandemic, Apex Legends saw a great increase in player numbers. The reason is simple: it’s easy to access, easy to learn, and so much fun to play regardless of your skill level. Apex Legends offers a great production value along with a chance to team up with your friends to make the best team out there.
How to play Apex Legends
Speaking of, maybe you’re one of our new friends who decided to join us on the hunting grounds and G-Loot ladders. Let’s get you into the arena as quickly as possible. That starts with creating an Origin account and learning how to install Apex Legends. By visiting the Apex Legends website, you can create your account and start playing immediately. You can also track your stats with G-Loot and monitor your progress to see how much you’re improving your performance.
You can also connect your Steam account to your Origin account and play Apex Legends on Steam. This also allows you to add your Steam friends to your friend list easily. On Origin, EA’s own digital gaming platform, you can add friends by clicking on the Friends section on the title bar and choosing “Add a Friend…”, this will bring up the search bar to look for your friends. You can search for friends by their Public ID, real name, or email address, and this search is done for every available platform, so you can add your friends to play with them using the cross-play function. After they accept your friend request, you’re good to go.
If you’re a new Apex Legends player but not a new battle royale player or a new gamer, especially if you’re a Titanfall veteran, there are some things you need to know before jumping into the fray in Apex Legends. Coming from Titanfall, you’ll see that while Apex Legends keeps the high tempo and incredible movement flexibility, it also nerfs a lot of options to keep the game balanced. So what did Respawn change from Titanfall’s multiplayer to Apex Legends to make Apex Legends a better battle royale?
How balanced is Apex Legends?
First of all, Titans were removed (more disgruntled fanbase noises) because they would obviously not fit well in a battle royale game. Also, while wall-running, double jumping, and constant grappling are all great, they also depend on the fact that Titanfall’s multiplayer has an instant respawn function. So, some of the superhuman feats demonstrated by the Pilots are removed or nerfed to reduce the overall difficulty of the game.
This was compensated by the strong classes of characters, which actually derive their abilities from the Titanfall Universe. A lot of the skills used in Apex Legends have a Titanfall counterpart. For example, Octane’s Stim is used by Simulacrums (robotic soldiers with human minds) in Titanfall. Since they have a mechanical body, using the Stim actually heals them while increasing their movement speed. But Octane, being a human (despite his best efforts), takes damage when using Stim because it overloads his metabolism beyond its limit.
As other examples, Wraith being able to phase shift, Mirage’s bamboozles, Gibraltar’s shield dome, Pathfinder’s grappling hook are all adapted versions of Titanfall abilities. These abilities had too much effectiveness if directly adapted from Titanfall, so they were balanced to fit a battle royale game. The biggest example of this is Wraith’s phase shifting, which was almost identical to Titanfall’s phase shifting, and it proved too difficult to counterplay. So Respawn decided to nerf Wraith’s abilities to give other Legends a chance to shine.
Instead of picking an ability and weapon loadout, you pick your Legend and create your loadout with the loot you find after landing on the ground. This gives everyone an equal chance to fight. To see which weapons are better to start with and which weapon fits your playstyle better, you can check our Every weapon in Apex Legends explained article.
While Apex Legends presents an equal opportunity of winning to everyone who participates, your playstyle and strategy will decide the winner. At G-Loot, we believe that the best way of improving yourself is knowing your strengths and weaknesses, trying to work on them, and being mentally prepared for the battle. Working with G-Loot’s tracker and challenges will shape you into an unstoppable Legend. You can also check out the Apex Legends 101 series to learn how to mentally prepare for that sweet victory.
Is Apex Legends pay-to-win?
The answer is a firm no. Everything you get in Apex Legends by spending money is cosmetic. You cannot purchase anything that will give you an edge in the game. From Apex Packs to Heirloom Sets, all types of loot are purely there for style and have no effect on the game’s balance.
Editor: Skins might not let you win but they do give you a chance to toot your own horn. Heh… I’ll see myself out. Image source: Respawn Entertainment.
Playing Apex Legends with friends
While you can always aim to achieve victory by yourself, it’s always better to have friends watching your six. Apex Legends supports cross-play between PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Origin and Steam for PC. As I mentioned above, you can easily search for your friends on any platform to team up with them. Cross-play is enabled by default, and you will see a small icon on your teammate’s banner that indicates what platform they are playing on. You can always opt out of the cross-play function at the cost of queue times.
Keep in mind that cross-play in Apex Legends is not supported for the mobile version. Apex Legends Mobile is designed specifically for touch screens and has streamlined controls to optimize it for mobile devices. So mobile players can’t cross-play with players from other platforms. Apex Legends mobile will be free to play and feature its own Battle Pass with items unique to the mobile version, so keep an eye on the mobile version if you’re a collector.
Another important thing about the cross-play function is that you’ll be able to use the in-game voice chat regardless of the platform you’re using, which enables you to quickly communicate with your friends without depending on each platform’s own methods of voice chat.
Real friends don’t let something like platform preference come between them. Image source: Respawn Entertainment.
So how does cross-play work? Will you be matched against PC players as a console player? The answer is no. You’ll be matched with players on the same platform as you. However, if your party includes both console and PC players, you’ll be joining a PC lobby. This is a precaution to prevent console players from bringing a PC user into their game to increase their chance of winning. As a PC player, you can only play against console players that have opted to match against PC players.
How is Apex Legends related to Titanfall?
Apex Legends takes place in the Outlands, after the end of the Frontier War. Frontier War was where Pilot Jack Cooper fought to keep the IMC (a megacorporation founded by Heinrich Hammond of Hammond Industries) from getting their hands on a planet-destroying weapon. In order to get the upper hand in the War, IMC employed several mercenary groups, one of which was the Apex Predators, led by none other than Kuben Blisk. The Apex Predators included Viper, Valkyrie’s father, and Ash, our current Arena host. After Pilot Cooper forcefully “disbanded” the Apex Predators, Blisk is assumed to have created the Apex Games in order to gain a position of power in the Outlands.
Many people come to the Apex Games for money, glory, or personal reasons. For example, Wraith was being kept prisoner in a secret laboratory where she was experimented on with phase technology. A version of herself from a different dimension rescues her and gives her the phasing device to help her escape. She uses the device to escape and ends up in King’s Canyon. She learns that the voices in her head are other versions of herself watching from the Void, so she learns to trust them, which becomes her passive ability in the game. Her Heirloom weapon, the Void Kunai, was also given to her by her Voidwalker self.
Another great example is Bangalore, an ex-IMC soldier who got stranded after a mission went south. She’s trying to earn enough money to return to her homeworld. Meanwhile, Pathfinder, a MRVN unit, is trying to find his creators. Valkyrie is here because she wants to avenge her father, blaming Blisk for his death. Ironically, Valkyrie’s father, Viper, was killed by Pilot Jack Cooper during the Frontier War. It all comes full circle.
Image source: Respawn Entertainment
So here we are, at the end of another article and armed with knowledge about everything that needs to be known about Apex Legends. There’s a lot to talk about Apex Legends and E-Sports in general, which is why you should keep an eye out for any future posts in G-Loot Blog. You can always check out our guides and tips & tricks articles to learn how to improve your game and climb the G-Loot ladders and become the best Apex Predator out there.
See you on the hunting grounds, Legends.
Originally published at https://stryda.gg.
