Apex Legends
Apex Legends
Ninja and Shroud reportedly paid big by EA to stream Apex Legends
Steven Rondina
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has made a lot of money off of Apex Legends. According to Trust.org, the popular Fortnite streamer was paid “around $1 million” by Apex Legends publisher Electronic Arts to promote the game to his fans. Ninja was one of many popular Twitch personalities to play Apex Legends in the days immediately following its release, and he was not alone in receiving compensation for streaming the game. Trust.org …
Apex Legends
Apex Legends developer talks new legend Octane, battle pass after leaks
Steven Rondina
New Apex Legends content is coming soon. Following a thorough data mine and leak on Origin, Respawn Entertainment has confirmed that a new playable legend character and a seasonal battle pass are inbound. The Apex Legends developer made the announcement on Reddit. In the Reddit post, Respawn warned fans against buying into any rumors they saw about the game. However, it did acknowledge that some upcoming content had come to …
Apex Legends
Team Liquid’s Call of Duty roster moves on to Apex Legends
Olivia Richman
Team Liquid’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Blackout team has moved to Apex Legends. The esports organization’s Apex Legends roster now consists of four players: Brenden “Casper” Marino, Gage “Caliburn” Meyer, Thomas “Flankxr” Cook, and Tanner “Rogue” Trebb. Despite Apex sporting three-person teams, Liquid has announced that they’re looking to add even more players to their new roster. A Proving Grounds initiative has been announced, calling all skilled players …
Apex Legends
First big balance patch changes Wingman, Pathfinder in Apex Legends
William Davis
Apex Legends has its first big balance patch, and it includes some major changes. The biggest adjustments featured in the patch are changes to the popular Wingman and the dominant Peacekeeper shotgun. In addition, developer Respawn Entertainment is changing the hitboxes for larger characters in Season 1. The Wingman will be adjusted to no longer be the unstoppable force it has proven to be at both professional and casual levels …
Leak reveals possible new Apex Legends hero Octane
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
Fans are buzzing over the possible leak of a new Apex Legends hero. An anonymous source confided in Daily Esports that the leaked photo of potential hero Octane was real. They even provided a clearer illustration of the possible addition to the game. The controversy began when someone took to Reddit to share a screenshot of hero Octane, taken fron the screen of a friend who was working on the …
100 Thieves sign Gigz, others to new Apex Legends team
William Davis
Apex Legends
100 Thieves has entered the Apex Legends scene with three content creator and pro player signings, and they are a bit off the beaten path. First, the organization signed Connor “Gigz” White, a mainstay in the Destiny 2 PVP community. 100 Thieves next went out and snagged “Teenage,” who the organization described as “an H1Z1 player and former number one Widowmaker in Overwatch.” 100 Thieves also says that Teenage …
Apex Legends smoke glitch is a game breaker
Olivia Richman
Apex Legends
A newly discovered Apex Legends exploit has been called game-breaking. Former Overwatch pro player Lucas “Mendokusaii” Hakansson, who recently broke Apex’s solo kill record, recently uploaded a video to YouTube explaining how smoke can be taken out of the game by simply manipulating some game files. Smoke is an integral part of Bangalore’s kit, as her tactical ability “Smoke Launcher” releases a wave of thick smoke that cannot be seen …
Cloud9 expands to Apex Legends, recruits PVPX
Jared Wynne
Apex Legends
Cloud9 is the latest organization to make a push into Apex Legends. The esports organization announced the signing of Apex Legends player “PVPX,” a popular content creator on both Twitch and YouTube. According to his Twitch account, PVPX has been active in Overwatch and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 prior to committing to Apex Legends. PVPX joins the organization as a content creator and as a competitor, and is …
Respawn promises daily future updates for Apex Legends
Fariha Bhatti
Apex Legends
Respawn has shared a detailed account of the studio’s future plans regarding newly released battle royale game Apex Legends. The information was given via on Reddit by community manager Jay “Jayfresh” Frechette, and highlighted how Respawn intends to communicate with its Apex playerbase. As part of the studio’s attempts at frequent communication, Jayfresh stated in the post that he would personally be updating Reddit with information about the game on …
Dizzy dominates Code Red Apex Legends with Ninja and KingRichard
William Davis
Apex Legends
The next big esports event in Apex Legends was dominated the game’s hottest player. Casters for the Code Red Apex Legends tournament couldn’t stop heaping praise on NRG’s Coby “Dizzy” Meadows, who went on to win the event with as part of a squad with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Richard “KingRichard” Nelson. Their praise might have seemed hyperbolic were it not for the wild plays Dizzy was making to justify …
Ninja victorious in first Apex Legends tournament
Steven Rondina
Apex Legends
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins isn’t just a popular streamer. He’s also capable of hanging with the best in his favorite games. Ninja reminded fans of his skills in winning the North American Twitch Rivals Apex Legends Challenge, the first major tournament in the popular new battle royale. Competing as King’s Canyon alongside NRG Esports players Coby “dizzy” Meadows and Richard “KingRichard” Nelson, Ninja managed to best a variety of streamers and …
Apex Legends roars to over 25 million players in one week
Steven Rondina
Apex Legends
Apex Legends’ momentum isn’t slowing down yet. The new battle royale title continues to attract players at an astounding rate and is still growing its lead among the most-played games in the world. This was reflected in the latest set of numbers announced by EA Games on its website, with a whopping 25 million players signing in over the last week and a peak of over 2 million concurrent players. …
NRG, Luminosity among esports orgs diving into Apex Legends
Steven Rondina
Apex Legends
The rush to gobble up talent in Apex Legends may soon be underway. The new battle royale has taken the world by storm, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed by established esports brands and organizations. With the game’s first tournaments just over the horizon, prominent teams are now looking for ways to establish themselves in Apex Legends. Foremost among that lot are Luminosity Gaming and NRG Esports. The North American companies took …
Dr DisRespect, Shroud, others feature in Twitch Rivals Apex Legends
gabhernandez
Apex Legends
New and wildly successful game Apex Legends is getting its first esports tournament just days after launch. The Twitch Rivals Apex Legends Challenge will feature 48 Twitch streamers competing for $200,000 worth of prizes. Two territories, North America and EMEA, will feature eight teams of three members, totaling 48 competitors for both regions. Teams will be allowed unlimited attempts to play and accrue points during a four-hour period. Five points …
Apex Legends hits over 10 million players in three days
Steven Rondina
Apex Legends
Apex Legends’ momentum is growing at an exponential rate. In the 72 hours since launch, EA Games’ new free-to-play battle royale has attracted over 10 million new users and reached over 1 million concurrent players. The news was announced by Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella in a statement on EA Games’ website. “We hoped you’d love it as much as us, but never in our wildest dreams could we have …
Millions flock to Apex Legends, the latest battle royale
Steven Rondina
Apex Legends
Apex Legends is taking the world by storm. The battle royale made by EA Games is just a few days old, but has already made its presence felt. Strong support from popular streamers coupled with a free-to-play model has seen Apex Legends’ player count roar into seven digits within the space of a day. According to Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella, it took the the game just eight hours to …
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.
Apex Legends
Apex Legends
Apex Legends
Apex Legends
