Of course, that's impossible to truly ascertain from our experience so far with Anthem 's early hours , meaning players will have to wait and see if they will be undergoing the gauntlet of tedium that constitutes for the genre's standard end-game. However, it will undoubtedly be nigh impossible for Anthem to be able to suitably compete with a free-to-play battle royale like Apex Legends when it comes to keeping players interested with a steady flow of content. For those in the industry seeking to recreate Apex Legends ' sleeper success, or at least successfully leech away some of its massive player base, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from this week's cramped mix of launches. First, consider the option that prolonged marketing and over-exposure might actually serve to hurt games; while not all games can capture the attention of millions overnight, producer's should at the very least take steps to avoid Crackdown 3 's five-year gap between announcement and release. Second, and most importantly, developers should innovate where others have not within their genre, even if it doesn't amount to reinventing the wh

That situation is likely salvageable due to the otherwise full-priced game's instant addition to the subscription-based Xbox Game Pass service, but missteps taken by Metro Exodus publisher Deep Silver have all but overshadowed the launch of the fantastic post-apocalyptic experience when they made the boldly abrupt decision to snub Steam and limit the game's PC release to the Epic Games Store . It's unknown how deeply this last-minute choice made from the top-down has affected Metro Exodus ' sales, but it generated enough online backlash among outraged PC players to drown out any positive news about the g

This guy shouldn't be considered an option outside of complete and utter desperation, though it is actually proven to be slightly more effective than nothing. But even then, you should swap it out as soon as possible with pretty much anything e

On top of being initially perceived as a somewhat desperate attempt on EA's part to chase market trends, Apex Legends launched on February 4 with almost no fanfare leading up to its surprise arrival. Nevertheless, Apex Legends has ballooned into nothing short of an enigmatic triumph for EA and developer Respawn, shattering player count milestones at speeds that would have made Fortnite wince. On its surface, it would seem that Apex Legends does little to nothing that this week's major releases don't, lacking the graphical spectacle of Metro Exodus and Anthem , the open-ended sandboxes of Far Cry New Dawn and Crackdown 3 , and the pop culture mélange that Jump Force provides. But it stands out from the throng, largely thanks to its simple-yet-enthralling gameplay loop, well-refined Titanfall gunplay and movement systems, and refreshing additions and improvements to the battle royale form

That downer aside, Apex Legends must be applauded for offering such a deep and polished experience from the get-go. Without any demo or beta tests, Apex Legends launched without a hitch and actually functions better than most full-retail triple-A online games. We can't emphasize enough how refreshing it is to have a polished battle royale game, that's also a polished triple-A online title, that's also F

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

Yeah, yeah. I know, this list is for weapons. And really, the melee option isn't fantastic in terms of damage. But it has a few utility roles that often get overlooked or simply undiscovered by new players, making it largely more useful than the preceding collection of subpar weapo

Learning how to best utilize character abilities, reading other teams to determine where to drop at the beginning of a match, and which gear to scavenge for during a round are all vital to winning in Apex Legends . There's a lot to commit to memory, but anyone looking to step up their slg game maps in Apex Legends needn't look any further than this guide from Screen R

Why was Apex Legends able to rest on its laurels this week while Respawn works on future content? The simplest answer can actually be found in what was likely perceived by EA to be its greatest weakness: it's near-total lack of pre-release marketing. Leaked only a day prior to launch, Apex Legends set the internet abuzz with the immediate promise of an all-new and well-polished experience that players could get their hands on for the tantalizing price of "free." Meanwhile, Crackdown 3 has suffered from a grueling, years-long embarrassment for Xbox Games Studios that began when it was revealed all the way back at E3 2014, greatly reducing the impact of the exclusive's largely overlooked February 15 release d