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

Like Dark Souls, Apex Legends contains many "hidden" mechanics, and it expects you to learn as you go. And that's not a bad thing. Unfortunately, this causes a rift between the experienced players and the newbies. How dejecting is it to see your level 5 player with one kill next to a level 85 adorned with achievement bad

Instead, Apex Legends is a multiplayer-only, squad and class-based spin on the battle royale formula that draws inspirations from several other hit games, and adds to them all in player-friendly ways. Apex Legends is not only the best battle royale slg game building Guide currently available, but it may be one of the best free-to-play releases of all-t

The game's monetization model involves selling premium currency that can be spent on (very expensive) premium character and weapon skins, and the game's loot boxes (called Apex Packs). The Apex Packs contain everything from skins, to emotes, lines of dialogue for characters, and scrap that can be used to craft cosmetics not yet acquired. The best part of this take on the Overwatch loot formula is that there are no duplicates, and the rarity levels of everything are outlined on the official Apex Legends website. In the future, there will be battle passes for seasons (taking from the Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege playbook) that last three months where limited time cosmetics can be earned or purcha

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

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

Played strictly in three-player squads across one map (called "Kings Canyon") that supports 60 players total with characters who each have their own unique abilities, right away Apex Legends differentiates itself from the competition. Its class (character) based gameplay that highlights the unique personalities and gear of each character is best compared to Overwatch , and the game also draws its monetization strategy from Blizzard's shooter as well. When it comes to its first-person gunplay however, Apex Legends plays more like Black Ops 4's Blackout mode but with more diverse gameplay and more layers of mechanics and control, including in the game's animati

Wraith - Jumping between dimensions makes Wraith one of the trickiest opponents to go up against. She is also able to open up rifts for her teammates, but be careful as other players can go through them as w

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