It is not the first time nor will it be the last that we have seen how a new studio is formed by the rupture of its creators with their old teams. When Jason West and Vince Zapella left Infinity Ward amid disputes to create Respawn Enternaiment we had no idea how they would play by the rules set in FPS when creating the first Titanfall.
This first title of the study let us see how FPS could evolve, innovate and allow us new ways to control our characters : thanks to adding movements, such as running on the walls, or piloting gigantic mechs we were able to open new options to the narrative.
Although Titanfall 1 was not the success it deserved to be, with its second part they managed to fix all the errors of the first: a single player campaign that would become, at the moment, one of the best in an FPS, with some of the best script twists that have been seen in a campaign.
For a long time, many people wondered if the silence of Respawn Enternaiment was due to the fact that they were preparing the third installment of their star IP , but when the rumors began, fear made its appearance. Reliable sources pointed to a Battle Royale in the Titanfall universe and that everything would be published in less than a week from the moment those rumors came out. “Another attempt to unseat Fortnite, yet another clone …” These were the thoughts that came to our minds but, to our delight, Apex Legends is anything but a soulless, spiritless copy of PUBG or Titanfall; it is an example that in this genre it is still possible to innovate.
What new features does it incorporate?
Apex Legends places us 30 years after the events of Titanfall 2 , a world where the War on the Frontier has ended and the Apex Games have emerged, battles disguised as sports where legends from all parts of the Frontier fight to share the riches of the Savage Lands, the resource-rich planets that were not affected by the war. The story does not have much crumb, but it is not very necessary if the rest of the pieces fit well , and we can assure that that is the case in which we find this title.
The game has the virtue that other Battle Royale of this type lack: it offers a ‘practice mode’, a tutorial to know all our movements and how to play before launching into battle without knowing what to do (something that directly inherits from the great Titanfall 2 tutorial).
In this mode, in addition to the typical actions of changing weapons, running, jumping or shooting, we will know two of the fundamental differences with the rest of Battle Royale on the market, and they are the options to mark and revive. The option to score at first sounds like an added bonus without much to contribute, but once you start to see the possibilities it will have during the fight, those first impressions fade.
We haven’t discussed it yet, but combat in Apex Legends takes place in three-member squads, and marking items opens up a wide range of possibilities for quick communication with the other members of your squad.
For example, you can mark an enemy’s position, where there’s a weapon, or where they can find something new to equip, all without having to type anything in any totally useless awkward chat during a frenzied firefight. Another use we can give it during the classic fall to the combat field, since you can recommend with the marking to the squad leader where to fall, remember, he will be the one who decides where we will all land).
Taking advantage of the fact that we are talking about the fall on stage we are going to comment on another little novelty. At some point on the map we will find a ship floating in which there are always weapons or resources to equip ourselves , to take some advantage when falling to the ground; the problem is that if we pounce without looking at this ship during our descent, it is more than likely that we will find some other squad “looting” already, and we will get involved without realizing it in our first battle of the game.
As we have said, Apex Legends brings quite a few new features, and another one of them is being able to resurrect our battle companions . When one of them falls during combat we will have two options: if we are fast we will be able to resuscitate him at the moment, because when they first kill us we go through a state in which we cannot shoot and defend ourselves and then die “definitively”. We put quotation marks around it because, if we’re skilled enough, we can bring our fallen partner’s flag to a spawn point. With this we will get it to reappear on the map aboard a ship, but with one drawback: the ship will be seen from practically anywhere on the map and other squadrons can come to hunt us down.
Similarities with other titles
So far the news of Apex Legends. It is now time to talk about the similarities with other titles that, although there are (and many) this game continues to stand out.
To begin with, it is a hero shooter , like Overwatch, with which we find that at the beginning of each game we must choose our character , each of them with different abilities, so that in a few games we will find our favorite. The peculiarity that we find is that we will have three turns to choose our character, as many as the team has members, and we will not be able to repeat the character , something to be thankful for not finding cases of having three Hanzo or three Genji …
On the other hand, gunplay , being Respawn Entertainment the creators of the game, had to be yes or yes perfect … and it has been. Already during the tutorial we felt that feeling of freedom and agility that Titanfall transmitted to us , that of being able to do practically what we want, and we say “practically” because one thing that we do miss a lot is wall running : being able to do the same virguerias we did in Titanfall to be able to run and jump over a wall to avoid an obstacle while still shooting at our targets.
But we are practically sure that with the future characters that will be coming out we will meet a Titan pilot (Jack Cooper, please) who will give us the ability that we so much miss.
Characters
And since we are talking about characters, we cannot fail to mention the ones we have available, a fairly extensive list, each with a tactical ability, another passive and a final ability: Bangalore throws a smoke grenade, it moves faster if it receives shots and can request an artillery strike; Bloodhound can briefly see enemies and can move more quickly for a time; Gibraltar can block damage for 15 seconds or when aiming with the scope generates a protection shield … Thus up to 6 free legends and another two that can be unlocked by playing or paying.
Once again Respawn has shown that this FPS has no secrets for them , whatever genre they are, and if they also have the challenge of innovating, they do not disappoint .
There are few excuses not to try, even if it is above, Apex Legends, it is free to play on both PC and Xbox and Ps4 and can be found in Origin or in the stores of each console, so we can only encourage you to join to the more than 28 million players who have already participated in the battles of the Wild Lands and become a legend.
