Apex Legends: Keeping the Momentum

It’s barely been two weeks since Apex Legends took the world by storm, and not only are many people playing the game — it amassed more than 25 million players in its first week alone-- but even more are watching others play the game. With 41 million hours of Twitch viewership over the past week, Apex Legends has more than doubled the watch time of Fortnite, which has been reigning supreme for almost a year now.Clearly, Apex Legends has quickly dominated the Battle Royale genre, but the real question is: how can it keep ahead of the well-established competition?

Nail the “Battle Pass”

Apex Legends needs to offer items that are exclusive to the Battle Pass and offer cosmetics that people actually want or care about. So much of the Battle Pass hype in Fortnite came from what you’d unlock at tier level 100, which was often an ultra-rare customizable skin. It was a status symbol, one that brought with it an automatic fear when encountered on the battlefield, because you knew the player was likely very skilled. (I still have flashbacks of John Wick skins building an entire wooden fortress in a matter of seconds…)

Keep Evolving

Apex Legends needs to find its own way to continually evolve every season, be it adding new weapons, new Legends, or potentially even new maps. Creating limited-time modes encourage players to remain active within the game, while offering varied gameplay to the traditional Battle Royale-style combat. Themed seasons have been successful within Fortnite, creating miniature story arcs players can follow along with that pan out over the duration of ten weeks. Apex Legends could iterate on this formula by dedicating each season to uncovering a given Legend’s backstory to give players some lore context.

Add Additional Maps

If Apex Legends introduces new maps, they shouldn’t let the players choose the map they prefer, instead opting for a single queue that randomly places players into a random map. In a game like Overwatch, for instance, matches aren’t hard to come by because everybody is queuing into the same set of maps. This would be the ideal way to add additional content to the game, while keeping queue times as short as possible. This also allows Respawn to explore more of the Titanfall universe with a variety of different locations.

Balance is Everything

The key to success for any multiplayer-focused game is balance, and while it’s still too early to tell if any one character or weapon is truly overpowered (though we can all agree the Mozambique needs a buff), there are definitely some that are better than others. For example, the Peacekeeper, a pump-style shotgun, seems to have incredible range for a gun that should excel in close-quarter combat. Epic Games has made weapon adjustments on an almost weekly basis since the launch of Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, and their development team has kept their ear to the ground for community feedback on weapon power levels. Respawn’s team needs to monitor weapon power levels on a consistent basis—and in a timely matter—in order to retain the trust of their player base.

Better Cosmetics

Currently, there are a number of items that can be unlocked through Apex Packs. These include legend skins, weapon skins, finishing moves, and a whole bunch of other cosmetics that have no practical effect on gameplay other than allowing you to show off to other players. Unfortunately, many of these seem more like simple palette swaps, especially when compared to contemporaries like Fortnite or Overwatch, which often offer entirely new character models for their legendary-tier skins. It also seems that Legendary-tier items are much rarer finds than in other loot box unlocks, as well. If Apex is going to be a financial success for Respawn (and EA), then they need to have more compelling cosmetic upgrades with a more lenient drop rate for rarer items.

Respawn Need to Remain Transparent

Respawn has been very active with the Apex Legends community, and this transparency has definitely paid off with the players. In this day and age, good developer communication is critical to a games-as-a-service title like Apex Legends.