Most of the battle royale genre fans have heard the tragedy ofPUBGbeing dethroned byFortnitein the course of a couple of months. Epic’s game took Bluehole’s child by surprise and introduced tons of quality-of-life features that were absent inPUBGback then. Funnily, the history repeated itself a few years later when all of a sudden,Apex Legendsreleased to an overwhelmingly positive reception.
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The game attracted 10 million players in just three days. Certainly, the free-to-play distribution model and a simultaneous release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC helped a lot. But the true miracle was the number of innovations made byApex Legendsin the sort of established Battle Royale genre.
10Out Of Nowhere
The most important part ofApex Legends' release was its suddenness. The game took the industry by surprise, although it had actually leaked a year before that. Back in Spring 2018, a supposed Respawn’s employee took it to Reddit where he “shared the leak” regarding the upcoming Battle Royale game within theTitanfalluniverse.
The “news” drew almost zero attention, which presumably resulted in the development team making a total overhaul of the game. Whatever they did beforeApex Legendsreleased, it was worth it. Everyone lost their minds and migrated to the latest game leaving overly popularFortnitebehind.
9A Force To Be Considered
Another reason forApex Legends' successful start was the quality of the game. It was a finished and polished project – although it obviously had some network issues, which are common for literally every online game upon the release. However, there was no early access period, no Alphas and Betas –Apex Legendsentered the competition in an almost perfect state.
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It just started existing and annoying the established leader of the BR market. It must’ve really hurt Epic Games' plans whenApex Legendsstole all the attention in a matter of a few days.
8Rapid Success
Speaking of exact numbers,Apex Legends' growth was phenomenal. It took the game just 8 hours to gather a player base of 1 million people. After three days, the player count hit the mark of 10 million, and after a month in the wild, there were 50 million players across the globe enjoying Respawn’s Battle Royale title.
Needless to say, everyone was blown away by such a confident performance byApex Legends, which led to creating memes like the one above. Never underestimate your competitor and be ready to strike back.
7Death Is Upon Us
As you could’ve imagined,Apex Legendsmade a natural storm in the industry. It will never be revealed why exactly EA decided to hold the marketing campaign for the game back and secretly release the title. Perhaps, the executives didn’t have the faith in yet another BR shooter – or maybe they needed some space for their “premium"Anthemtitle.
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Whatever the case is,Apex Legendsstole the hearts of BR fans and almost killed the online figures inPUBG,Blackout, and, obviously,Fortnite. The first weeks after the game released were totally dominated byApexon all the frontlines including streaming services.
6The Real Enemy
Blackoutwas a great addition to the battle royaleshooterfamily. It was a refined experience of high quality, but it didn’t actually introduce anything revolutionary new. That’s why most of the genre fans examined it with moderate curiosity and, sooner or later, returned back to their favoriteFortnite. In other words,Blackoutwasn’t a threat by any means.
Apex Legends, on the other hand, brought in various innovations as was mentioned above. It wasn’t just another Battle Royale game. Instead, Respawn’s passionate project added mechanics that you would’ve never thought you needed in a BR game – but now can’t imagine your life without.
5The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend
Fortnitewas not the only battle royale game to suffer from the unexpected appearance ofApex Legends.PUBGwas also losing its audience in favor of the newly released game, and many fans felt like Bluehole’s project shared a common enemy with Epic’s building shooter. It’s only partially true since every battle royale game is still on its own in the never-ending war for players' attention.
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However, it was somewhat comforting for the player bases ofFortniteandPUBGto dream about confrontingApex Legendsback to back. It was never really like that, of course, but the idea is inspiring nonetheless.
4If you can’t do better – steal
The gameplay inApex Legendsproved to be comfortable and enjoyable. The developers decided to avoid unnecessary complications and corrected existing flaws in the BR genre. One of the best ideas implemented in the game was the respawn mechanics, which allowed you to bring back your fallen teammates so they wouldn’t leave the match right away and could continue the fight.
This sole concept had changed a lot back then. While the other games on the market did not offer the same type of salvation for eliminated players, it was a matter of time until someone would “adopt” it.Fortnitewas the pioneer – but it completely ripped off the respawn mechanics fromApex.
3The Bitter Truth
“The Scroll of Truth” meme template is a great way to express thoughts that do not necessarily display the actual truth. Still, the picture you may see reflects the idea that you can’t infinitely milk your audience with repetitive and lazy gameplay updates – and the emerging of a proper competitor proves that being free and accessible is not the only key to success.
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Fortniteis not a bad game by any means – it is sophisticated and well supported, but the real truth is thatApex Legendshelped it become better. In other words, the release of Respawn’s project was a win-win situation for all the Battle Royale enthusiasts regardless of their favorite game.
2Facing The Undeniable
The developers ofFortnitewere literally forced to utilize some of the key features introduced inApex Legendsto make their own game more attractive. Just like the aforementioned respawn mechanics, a few other things “migrated” toFortniteincluding the ping system. But why would Epic Games do that?
The reason is pretty simple. The elegant and effective solutions performed by Respawn inApex Legendsmade the game more fluid and controllable – andultimately better. And just likePUBGstole emotes fromFortnite,Fortnitehad to steal something fromApex Legendsto catch up.
1The actual standoff
Content-creators from the YouTube-channel called Laugh Over Life examined the rivalry betweenApex LegendsandFortnitein a hilarious video, which you canwatch here. In short, the vicious hunter Bloodhound fromApexsomehow made it to the world ofFortnite, and the outcome turned out to be pretty deadly for the latter game.
Obviously, one can only dream of a proper crossover between two games, which will probably never happen. However, even fantasizing about it can shed light on the existing issues ofFortniteandApex Legends. In that regard, memes can be actually helpful.
