Comparing **Apex Legends ** to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 's Blackout reveals two fairly similar gameplay experiences, but what sets the former apart is its major quality-of-life improvements and marriage of the hero shooter and battle royale genres. If the game industry avoided pre-launch gaffes like Metro Exodus ' and changed the answers on its copied homework a bit more than Anthem seems willing, perhaps a free-to-play title wouldn't have so easily trounced so many expensive AAA titles in the first pl

If you're familiar with the characters in Apex Legends, then you are familiar with the adrenaline junkie known as Octane. He's an energetic guy who happens to sport a pair of bionic legs due to him blowing them off with a grenade in the pursuit of a race track rec

Bloodhound believes that destiny is already a carved out path, and because of that, they believe they're unstoppable until the day in which they shall pass on in death. It seems they have a real sense of purpose and mean

She's also known for doing the role of Tiki whenever a new Fire Emblem game is released in the West. Like many of the voices in Apex Legends , Mela Lee brings out Lifeline's personality and July 2025 Perks helped in making her an immediate fan favor

Another unique element to Apex Legends is the ability to revive downed allies. Like other battle royale titles, a player is downed before being killed off and they can hold a shield item in their inventory to prevent players from shooting them to finish them off. Enemies can however, get up close an employ a lethal execution animation (these are also battler royale fists). But even then, players can recover the tags of their downed ally and bring them to a revive point where they can then re-enter the match via a dropship, but without any of their loot. These layers upon layers add so much to the dynamic of the usual die and go back to the menu style of more punishing battle royale experien

To be clear, Solos Mode is an excellent solution to the problem of matching with sub-par random teammates when the only option is team play. Often, players find themselves matched with others who are lousy players, poor sports, or just generally to

Lifeline is very much an empathetic soul who wants to help those in need and make a real difference in the world, but that doesn't mean she's a pushover. She is very sarcastic and callous which directly goes against the assumptions one makes about people who are as helpful as she

Taking the dubious honor of this list's bottom entry is this unremarkable semi-auto pistol. The magazine size is best described as claustrophobic and it has the weakest damage output in the game, barring maybe the melee attack. But even that has redeeming qualit

That leaves only Anthem , whose global February 22 launch will mark the only proper live-service competitor to Apex Legends . Though Anthem is unquestionably beautiful and has thrilling combat and movement that Crackdown developers ought to take note of, there is the unavoidable fact that it is EA's answer to Destiny , and the online loot-shooter genre Anthem 's obvious source material spawned is marred by a series of hard-to-avoid caveats. It does more to ensure that players won't be locked out of certain time-limited content by providing matchmaking in areas that the Destiny franchise neglects, but (as EA has clearly done its homework) it's difficult to not fear that launch content will prove much more sparse than initially expected, much as it was in both Destiny entr

But it's not just about improving what already works from the battle royale genre since Apex Legends adds many all-new features too. Matches are fast and usually completed in less than 20 minutes. At the beginning of a given match there's a dropship players jump from, like any other battle royale, but in this one players jump together as a squad and one player is designated the "Jumpmaster" to keep them together. Players can manually separate from the pack of course, but it's a smart change to enforce the idea that Apex Legends is a truly a squad-based game. There currently are no solo or duo mo

However, a Solos Mode is a curiosity in this game, given that the game has its genesis in team play. Team compositions seem designed to balance one another out (if not always effectively), allowing players to combine their characters’ unique skills to become champions of the arena. The goal in having multiple characters is that there is some variance on the battlefield, which is something that’s in jeopardy in a Solos M

This lightweight sniper rifle has a few advantages that help to combat the drawbacks of its weapon class, but ultimately still has a difficult time overcoming them. It kicks out bullets faster than its counterparts, keeping a little more utility as you track your shots and the enemy closes

It's not a bad weapon after you've obtained a few upgrades for it, but getting there is going to be a slog. The locked burst fire really drags it down in terms of DPS, limiting its ability to maintain pressure and remain useful inside of mid-range. There are definitely better ways to make use of the heavy ammo it consu