Many people have never played a Battle Royale game before. It’s a phenomena that many are aware of, but haven’t participated in themselves. Many of the Battle Royale Games on offer just don’t capture interest for one reason or another. PUBG seemed too dry, and felt too much like a bog standard military shooter. Fortnite changed that up and is the reason why a lot of people got into it, but it still has plenty of mechanics, like the survival style base building, that still just feel intimidating. It can be daunting having to worry about gathering resources and building structures while also trying to avoid certain death. So, it’s not that those people are against Battle Royale, it’s just that they haven’t found the right one for them.
With APEX Legends having just launched it’s the perfect opportunity to try again. This particular title changes a lot of things that deterred some from playing previous Battle Royale games. Like that it’s in first person, many have a hard time getting used to multiplayer games in a third person perspective, having a set class based character selection gives a familiarity that players can grasp onto, and lastly the whole flavor game is very appealing. It looks really pretty, but not as cartoonish as Fortnite, it’s got a whole Post-apocalypse aesthetic that works really well to this style game. I know it’s connected to the Titanfall universe in some way, but I’m not too familiar with those games so If I’m reading the atmosphere of the game incorrectly, I apologize. With these Battle Royale stars aligning, I dove in and played a few matches. This is absolutely not a review, or even really a comprehensive impression of the game. I played a few rounds, had some thoughts as I ventured into unknown territory and wanted to share those with you:
“First thing I did was compete the little training scenario, which I have to say does not prepare you for the game at all. From there I entered my first live match. Upon hero selection I chose the Robot, because why not, he’s a robot and he has a grappling hook. I was then immediately confronted with my first real decision in a Battle Royale game. Where to Drop. So I was aware this was a feature in these kind of games. To enter the map you fly over it in a big plane or something and then choose when to bail out and land. Having this knowledge did very little to help me understand how to go about doing it. APEX Legends does everything it can to making new players feel comfortable, and letting you delegate responsibility to more experienced players. Assessing my situation I realized I can shirk my JumpMaster duty onto the next person and not worry about being yelled at for choosing somewhere incorrect.
We jump, and land in a water treatment facility, which I have since learned is the place everyone immediately goes to and the worst place to be in the whole game (this designation might also extent to everywhere else on the map as well). We land along with a few other groups of players and we all immediately run for weapons. I burst into a building to see a whole pile of white and blue colored things lying on the ground. I don’t take the time to check what all this crap is, I just scoop everything up thinking one of this must be a gun. Not True, and here is where I learn the second thing about Battle Royale games: There is tons of crud lying everywhere most of which are not guns. I open my inventory to see that I have rifling, and scopes, and magazines. Lots of bits of guns, but not a whole working gun. At this point the fighting closed in around me and I was quickly shot down. My team was already down, and I was the last one to die. I had some sort of death shield, but that turned out to not be very useful. The match lasted an entire 3 minutes for my team, but in that three minutes I learned quite a bit.”
From there on, matches tended to go better, a few went about as well as that first, and one match I was put into a team all on my own, and you can imagine how well that went. Overall the matches were a lot of fun. To reiterate a crucial point, APEX does a great job of letting new players get used to everything. Every match is played with a team, so the better players can do all the planning, while us new guys can just kinda run beside them. There is a great one button system for pointing out enemies and useful items and places to go next. So even people with a fear of interacting with strangers in a video game can have fun. There still get ones head around, especially involving the loot system, but over time you’ll get better at reading the pop-up over each item, and figuring out what each gun bit actually does. The ammo system is pretty straight forward and nicely color coded so you don’t have to think too much about that. In all the matches played I successfully used my character ability once, So there is going to be a learning curve there, but APEX does a nice job of having these be nice bonus abilities rather than necessary tools.
Ultimately what was learned from this is that while sometimes the language of this game can be hard to get a grasp of, for the most part it’s not that bad, and APEX wants you to learn it. They want players to help each other learn it rather than just getting frustrated. The systems in the game help with that, and make it accessible to a wider range of players.
If you are new and wanting some tips please check out all the other guides on the site, written by people way better at the game than me.
