Middle mouse click is never the coolest button in a videogame. In a shooter that’s usually left-click, which makes bullets happen. It’s what we’re here for. In other games maybe it’s space to jump, or V for an elaborate melee kill. It could be R for a sweet reload animation. But middle mouse? That’s never the star of the show. Except in Apex Legends,
Middle mouse click is never the coolest button in a videogame. In a shooter that’s usually left-click, which makes bullets happen. It’s what we’re here for. In other games maybe it’s space to jump, or V for an elaborate melee kill. It could be R for a sweet reload animation. But middle mouse? That’s never the star of the show. Except in Apex Legends, because here the middle mouse button is the ping button, and Apex Legends‘ ping system is honestly incredible. I’ve never seen a ping system this good. Hell, I’ve never seen a ping system good enough to make me talk about ping systems. But it’s Apex Legends‘ cleverest innovation and key to the game working at all, because it’s a battle royale entirely built around squad play.
What is Apex Legends?
After a leaky weekend, Respawn has officially revealed, and launched, Apex Legends, a free-to-play battle royale shooter set in the Titanfall universe. We played Apex last week—read on for our thoughts, and find Apex on Origin.
No solos, no duos: Nothing but squads of three, picked from a pool of unique Overwatch-esque heroes (eight at launch, with more to come) with distinct abilities. This is the game Respawn’s Titanfall 2 team has been working on for the past two years, merging what they see as the best elements of hero shooters with the hottest genre around. Look at Apex Legends cynically, and it seems designed by committee: The hotness of BR, the popularity of hero characters, and a heaping helping of skins, emotes, and loot to unlock (check out our detailed breakdown here). But it’s the little touches that set it apart, like a fast slide move brought over from Titanfall, a subtly brilliant ping system, and how deeply squad composition affects how you play.
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Scroll through for more shots of Apex Legends‘ varied sci-fi map.
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Squad Royale
At the basic level, this is mostly battle royale as you know it, made by an experienced FPS team. It’s free to play. Each round 60 players drop from a ship onto a large map, gradually converging on a shrinking circle of safe space until there’s only one team left alive. Matches will last 25 minutes or so, unless you die sooner (which I did, a lot, in the six hours or so I got to play before launch).
Apex Legends is set in the Titanfall universe, but it definitely isn’t a Titanfall sequel. Fans will spot a few nods to those games and a lot of familiar weapons, but it’s missing some of the wilder, more fun guns from the Titanfall arsenal I’d hoped to find. It’s also missing Titanfall’s wild mobility, like double jumping and wall running, though you can still slide down slopes and easily mantle up walls, so you’re still fairly agile. There are, sadly, no titans (or any vehicles at all), though I did walk through the giant skeletal ribcage of a very large beast as I made my way across Apex Legends‘ map, so there’s that.
Speaking of the map: It’s cool. I mean, really cool. It’s a sci-fi smorgasbord that probably makes less than zero logical sense, because in the span of a few minutes you can walk past a waterfall and lush riverside, a desert shantytown, a giant alien skeleton, and a military facility. The variety makes each location memorable, and the game helpfully pops up the name and loot quality of each zone as you enter it. It’s a nice middle ground between PUBG’s military realness and Fortnite’s full-on cartoon wonderland.
The map feels a bit like Titanfall run wild, freed from the constraints of being Call of Duty With Cool Robots.
