Apex Legends
News
Apex Legends to reveal new legend Wattson at EA Play event
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends’ newest legend is being officially announced. At EA’s “EA Play,” a stream being held today before E3 begins, Respawn Entertainment will be discussing Apex Legends Season 2. EA CEO Andrew Wilson claimed they have “big and robust” plans for the battle royale. This includes new Battle Pass content, in-game environment evolutions, and new legends. The Apex Legends portion of EA Play will be live at 1 PM EST. …
Apex Legends
ESPN launching its own esports events series EXP, starts with Apex
Steven Rondina
ESPN is looking to expand its esports programming in a big way. The Worldwide Leader in Sports is planning to launch its own series of esports events titled EXP. The move is a big step forward in ESPN’s larger push into esports after years of performing test runs with simulcasts of established tournaments. The news was announced in a press release on ESPN Press Room. “We are proud ESPN continues …
Apex Legends
Apex Legends patch notes bring reporting options and bug fixes
Olivia Richman
The leaked Legendary Hunter limited time mode wasn’t the only addition to Apex Legends with the most recent update. More information was revealed about the Apex Elite Queue, which will be available until July 2. Players who make it to the top five in any match can earn a spot in a queue full of top-five winners, said the full patch notes. In this mode, the ring closes faster and …
Apex Legends
Apex Legends Legendary Hunter event information has been leaked
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends’ Legendary Hunter event has been leaked after Respawn Entertainment announced it at the end of May. The event will go live in a few hours, but fans were apparently not able to wait. A player posted screenshots to Reddit that outline the update’s challenges and the potential rewards. Similar to competing battle royale title Fortnite, new epic skins will be unlocked upon the completion of these new challenges, …
Apex Legends
Shroud confronts an Apex Legends cheater live on his stream
Olivia Richman
Twitch streamer Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek didn’t take kindly to getting eliminated in Apex Legends by players using cheats. Despite a recent scooter injury, the former Counter-Strike pro has continued to excite his 6.5 million Twitch followers with exceptional aim and reflexes. That made the elimination even more shocking to Shroud, who appeared to be taken out quite easily by the other player. “He just destroyed me,” Shroud exclaimed on stream. …
Apex Legends
Apex Legend’s game breaking Octane bug persists for over a month
Olivia Richman
Remember the game breaking audio bug in Apex Legends? The community hasn’t forgotten about that one. And how could they? It’s still happening, despite Respawn Entertainment developers promising that it’d be addressed within a week. This is something that the Apex Legends community is getting overly accustomed to hearing. And that may not even be the worst glitch in the game. Now, while using Octane, players become stuck in the same …
Apex Legends
Respawn offers free Apex Legends loot to PlayStation 4 players
Fariha Bhatti
Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment has released a free cosmetics pack that is available exclusively to PlayStation Plus subscribers. The PlayStation Plus Play Pack can be claimed from the PlayStation store by anyone who subscribes to the PlayStation Plus service. The free bundle offers a total of six items, including customizable content for both Lifeline and Mirage. Both legends receive one blue themed skin and one banner each. The final …
Apex Legends
Apex Legends fires back after KFC posts meme about lack of updates
Olivia Richman
It’s 2019 and there’s nothing brands love more than being petty on Twitter. Wendy’s may be the OG of fast food restaurants delivering sick burns to customers and competitors alike, but KFC apparently wants a piece of that artery-clogging, deep fried meme clout. KFC has a Twitter account dedicated to gaming. This video game meme account has almost 50,000 followers. One of their latest tweets, however, got them the back-and-forth drama …
Apex Legends developer to patch hit registration and audio bugs
Fariha Bhatti
Apex Legends
A new community check-in from Respawn Entertainment has been published by community manager Jay “Jayfresh” Frechette, offering fans of the game some insight into the ongoing development process. The latest update reveals that the Apex Legends team is largely focusing on quality of life updates at this point, including the improvement of hit registration and various audio fixes. One of the first points addressed by Jayfesh is the hit registration …
All the details for Apex Legends Season 2 to be revealed at E3
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
Apex Legends players will have to wait until E3 next month to learn more about the game’s upcoming second season. EA said that the publisher has “big and robust plans” for new content in the game. The details will be revealed at the EA Play conference on June 7. This event will be taking place at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. It will be broadcast live for fans to …
Apex Legends game breaking audio bug is real, addressed by Respawn
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
Since its February release, Apex Legends has had its fair share of bugs. But there’s been one bug that has frustrated players the most thanks to its game breaking results. There’s currently an Apex Legends bug that causes audio to completely disappear during firefights. Audio can also become clunky or vanish entirely when a lot of people land in the same location. Some players turned to forums to discuss this …
Cloud9 place roots in Brazil with all-Brazilian Apex Legends team
William Davis
Apex Legends
Cloud9 has signed an all-Brazilian Apex Legends roster. The organization shared the announcement through Twitter. Apex Legends is one of the hottest competitive titles of the year so far. The game was released in February without any prior marketing or promotion. It immediately became one of the most streamed games on Twitch, and that popularity attracted the attention of the professional teams and organizations. Teams including 100 Thieves, Team Liquid, …
Apex Legends improves in-game and external communications
Olivia Richman
News
Apex Legends players can now send voice messages to their teammates without using a microphone. This wasn’t possible on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions until now. Before the communication update, players could only send messages by temporarily leaving the game to write a message to another player. This would also require that the player receiving the message to temporarily leave the game to check the message’s contents. This …
Apex Legends streamer gets banned mid-stream for hacking
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
For some reason, Apex Legends streamer Entzy wanted it to be very obvious that he was cheating. Not only could viewers see several in-game cheats from his point of view, but they could hear him chatting casually about cheating. Oh, and the YouTube video of the stream was titled, “Entzy | CHEATING ON APEX.” The in-game cheat that Entzy was using in this strange stunt appeared to be an auto-aiming …
Shroud quitting Apex Legends due to constant server issues
Steven Rondina
Apex Legends
Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is fed up with Apex Legends. The world’s most popular streamer suggested that he is going to call it quits on the battle royale game during a recent broadcast. The frustration stems from the game’s frequently laggy servers, which makes the game run at a slower speed. Shortly after making the bold statement, Shroud once again found himself playing in slow motion. Though Shroud may or may …
Twitch streamer banned for using blackface in Apex Legends cosplay
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
In the gaming community, where things like this happen, maybe it’s not the best to use blackface in cosplay. Even so, it happens with surprising frequency. One of the most recent examples of this was Karina “Karupups” Martsinkevich’s Lifeline cosplay. Twitch has issued a 30-day ban for the streamer, shutting down the channel before the live stream had even ended. For the Apex Legends-themed cosplay, Karupups had put on a …
Apex Legends Thicc Boi Buffs honored with Battle Pass XP event
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
The most recent Apex Legends patch notes have gone live. Featuring weapon changes, legend balancing, and the game’s first Battle Pass XP boosting event, the patch notes are currently available here. The first order of business was buffing the game’s “beloved thicc bois,” Pathfinder, Gibraltar, and Caustic. Those three legends were at a disadvantage due to their large hitbox sizes. To address this, Pathfinder’s hitbox was adjusted at the beginning …
Apex Legends developer addresses the possibility of a Switch port
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
Apex Legends has made a huge impact on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC. But will the newly popular battle royal be coming to the Nintendo Switch? Developer Respawn Entertainment has noted that Switch fans are eagerly anticipating Apex Legends coming to the Nintendo console, but project lead Drew McCoy recently told Wired that a Switch edition is not yet in the works. “If Swich was coming, we would tell …
100 Thieves signs fourth player to new Apex Legends squad
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
100 Thieves has signed a fourth Apex Legends player to its squad with accomplished battle royale player Justin “JP2” Pate. Before switching to the newest battle royale game, JP2 competed professionally in H1Z1 and PlayerUnknown’s Battlgrounds. “He’s won multiple top placements at events such as Gamescon and Dreamhack. We’re excited to share his Apex journey with him,” said 100 Thieves’ official Twitter. When it comes to Apex Legnds, JP2 …
Data mining uncovers five brand new weapons in Apex Legends
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
Apex Legends may be releasing new weapons in the near future. While Respawn Entertainment has not officially announced any new weapons since the release of the Havoc Energy Rifle, data miners have uncovered some new weapons deep in the game’s files. These five weapons are called the EPG, Softball, Defender, Archer, and the ARL. The EPG is already a weapon in Titanfall 2, where it’s an extremely powerful energy weapon. …
Apex Legends blew up the hero shooter genre and shook up battle royales in a permanent way; but where is the game headed at this point?
Few games have had as explosive a launch as Apex Legends. The game was effectively shadow-dropped and instantly became one of the biggest titles in its genre. Though it didn’t “kill” Fortnite as some predicted, and didn’t necessarily even slow down its growth, it did carve out a niche of its own.
But where did Apex go from there? And where is the game headed at this point? Here’s everything there is to know about Apex Legends’ history and future.
What is Apex Legends?
Apex Legends is a hero shooter developed by Respawn Entertainment, the creators of the Titanfall series.
The game launched in 2019 with a surprising shadow drop. At the time, Fortnite was enjoying incredible mainstream visibility both online and even across mainstream media. Late-night TV shows, morning news programs, and radio DJs around the world were discussing this incredibly popular video game that teenagers were obsessing over.
It’s no surprise that an enormous publisher like EA Games would make a push to imitate its success. It did so in a surprising way, however.
The game launched on February 4, 2019, with no marketing beforehand. Instead, EA Games worked directly with some of the biggest Fortnite-focused streamers at the time, including Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. These Fortnite streamers were reportedly paid millions of dollars to showcase the competition, which proved to be a major success.
Official statements claimed that Apex Legends garnered millions of unique players within a day of its launch, and 25 million within its first week. In 2022, EA stated that the game had surpassed $2 billion in revenue throughout its lifespan.
Apex Legends sets itself apart with fast movement and action
Apex Legends combines gameplay elements from both the battle royale and hero shooter genres. The title is a first-person shooter where players are typically placed into a team of three. Teams air drop into a level that shrinks as the game progresses, and need to procure weapons and armor on site.
While this sounds very similar to Fortnite and PUBG: Battlegrounds, Apex Legends set itself apart by folding in hero shooter-style characters. Each playable character has a handful of abilities that can be used to help allies or harm enemies. These abilities varied wildly, ranging from tracking enemies’ footsteps to healing allies to launching one’s entire team into the sky to reposition.
Even in comparison to Fortnite, this made for a fast-paced gameplay experience. This was complemented by other mechanics.
Movement in Apex Legends was set apart by the ability to quickly scale obstacles, crouch, and slide down hills and stairs. This makes firefights quick and frantic.
Not only that, but the experience of allies being downed was significantly more dynamic. Downed players weren’t just forced to crawl; they had a shield they could use defensively or to help allies on offense. When a player is killed, they can be revived if allies interact with their body quickly enough and then interact with a respawn beacon. This mechanic wasn’t present in competing battle royales, and rewarded players for sticking around until the end of a game.
All this made for a highly engaging experience that maintained a strong place in the battle royale space.
Apex Legends popularity in flux after controversies
Though Apex Legends enjoyed an explosive launch and has generated billions of dollars in revenue, the game’s popularity has waned over time. EA Games doesn’t offer exact player count figures, nor do PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo. However, tracking services for Steam suggest that Apex Legends suffered a marked decline in its player count across 2023 and 2024.
The game hit an all-time peak on Steam in February 2023 with an average player count of 257,416 throughout the month, and a peak of 624,473, per Steam Charts. However, those numbers steeply declined in 2023, with those losses continuing into 2024 and 2025.
The exact reason is unclear, though the game has endured multiple major controversies.
Fans have long complained about the game’s loot box system, which forces completionists to spend a great deal of cash in order to acquire all the game’s premium skins. Complaints regarding hacking also came to a head publicly in 2024 when a hacker commandeered an Apex Legends esports event by injecting into competitors’ PCs.
Respawn also overhauled how the game’s battle pass system works, breaking up seasons into multiple parts while billing players for each part.
The game’s long-term future as one of the world’s most popular competitive games may be uncertain, but despite some questions, the game still remains one of the most popular live-service games in the world.
