APEX LEGENDS

Developer Respawn Entertainment Publisher Electronic Arts Format PC, PS4, Xbox One

Battle-royale games have always been clumsy affairs; the comedic shonkiness of games such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite has helped generate brilliant player-led anecdotes. But, as 2019 began, we had all but left battle royale to the kids. And then, in February, without warning, Apex Legends arrived.

It was the Respawn game nobody was expecting, built from the scraps of the Respawn game everyone was expecting: the studio shelved Titanfall 3, putting its resources into a squad-based, free-to-play, entirely titanless battle-royale shooter. The surprise launch was genius, ensuring everyone would at least give it a go. Once they did, Apex Legends’ player count and Twitch ranking rocketed – it briefly threatened to unseat Fortnite from its throne. In the end, it didn’t. It did more.

Respawn’s guns – from the crunch of the EVA-8 Auto shotgun to the surgical rattle of the Spitfire – make an embarrassment of other battle royales. Player movement is slick and clean, a toolkit of auto-mantles and slides as practical as it is expressive. Overwatch- style abilities add a layer of team-based strategy. Then there are the inventive mechanical wrinkles: the tag dead teammates drop that can be carried to beacons for a resurrection, if their ally is skilled enough to survive the journey; the hot zones that draw in dangerous players in search of loot; the contextual ping system that has revolutionised nonverbal communication and been adopted by every other team-based shooter under the sun.

Fortnite may still be riding high in the popularity stakes. But Apex Legends, from its confident, classy, celebrity-inspired launch to its considered design that had others falling over their pickaxes to ape, did something no other game will ever get the chance to do again – it made battle royale cool.