Apex Legends suddenly took over the world in February 2019 when the Battle Royale hit the market as a surprise. Major streamers such as Shroud and Ninja played the game for days on end in front of an audience of millions and in a short time the game managed to attract tens of millions of players. Since then, Apex Legends has not disappeared from the spotlight and still manages to attract a huge number of players. We now know that when a game is so popular, there is a demand for a mobile version of the game. We saw this before with Call of Duty: Mobile and League of Legends: Wild Rift. Activision and Riot Games respectively managed to make very successful adaptations of their games for mobile, but will Respawn also succeed in making their popular battle royale a success on Android and iOS?
Apex Legends Mobile is the full game on mobile and more
While some mobile versions of popular games decide to make a modified version of the main game, Respawn has decided to make the Mobile experience as authentic as possible. That means you can just drop on one of the maps with teams of three as usual to be the last one standing. Fan-favorite map World’s Edge will be available with launch and Kings Canyon will be added to the game a little later. In addition to the standard battle royale mode, you can also improve your skills in a multi-player arena in Team Deathmatch matches, or in the Arena, a mode that was added to the main game for consoles and PC relatively recently.
Not all Champions from the main game will be available upon release, but the mobile team has decided to start with: Bloodhound, Gibraltar, Lifeline, Pathfinder, Wraith, Bangalore, Caustic, Mirage, Octane, and a new Champion specifically developed for mobile, Fade. So Respawn has not only transformed the game to a mobile version, it also adds new content that has been specially developed for the mobile players. Fade won’t be coming to PC, at least not for the time being, and it contains some skills that are very good for mobile players.
For example, Fade has the Slipstream passive, which gives you a speed boost every time you perform a slide, and he has the Flash Back skill. With Flash Back you can go back in time a little bit to a point where you were before. If you’ve ever played Overwatch, it will sound familiar to you as Tracer’s skill. His Ultimate is called Phase Chamber, this is a grenade with which you send all hit players to the Void.
As you might expect, the game also features a Battle Pass to collect skins for your favorite Champions and weapons, complete missions and challenges, and level up your account to unlock the Champions and get loot boxes.
How does it play?
Apex Legends for PC and consoles is seen as one of the battle royale games with a very high intensity and speed and therefore also has a high skill cap. You will notice this immediately in the mobile version of the game. In Apex Legends you do a lot of things at once. You have to scout, run, slide, jump, swap weapons or heal all the while, all while being shot at. These are a lot of actions that already require some practice with a mouse and keyboard, you can see what this is like on a touch screen.
I dare say that over the years I have become quite proficient with the movement in Apex Legends on PC, but I immediately noticed that this does not translate well to the mobile version. I tried to play the game just like I did on PC, with quick moves, sliding, jumping and surprising your opponents that way, but I found I couldn’t get it right. This is mainly because there are a lot of buttons on the right side of your screen and you also have to look around with that thumb. You have to be very fast with your fingers if you want to perform the sprint, slide, jump, combination while also looking in the right direction. It will take some time to master this, although there are undoubtedly twelve-year-olds who can do this with two fingers in their nose.
It was also noticeable that aiming at opponents turned out to be extremely difficult. Where I immediately had the feeling that I was a good player with games like Call of Duty Mobile, I can’t be as dominant with Apex Legends Mobile. Now I think I’ve only played against bots and have won all my games as a result, but I have the feeling that with my current skillset I will be finished by twelve-year-olds who have had a coke too much.
It is striking that games such as Call of Duty Mobile and League of Legends Wild Rift succeed in making the games manageable for mobile and also make some adjustments to achieve this, but Apex Legends makes the threshold seem very high. this moment. This will make it more difficult for new players to get in and can be a huge pitfall for the game. Mobile games should be quick and easy to understand and although the game is basically simple to explain, I sometimes found myself controlling the game in the same way as my mother who first pressed a controller into her hand 20 years ago. got to play Crash Bandicoot. Maybe I’m just too old to be good at touch screen, that’s also possible.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that I am generally very impressed with what Respawn has managed to make from Apex Legends Mobile. You get a very impressive package that even includes a new Champion and game mode that both fit very well on mobile. On some building pop-ins when flying down from the plane, the game runs very well and I didn’t experience any lag. The gameplay is smooth and you will not experience any delay when shooting and the looting of items is very fast, thanks to an auto loot system that, for example, recognizes what kind of bullets you need.
I will continue to practice with the touch controls, because I am convinced that once you have them under control, the game becomes much more fun. Apex Legends Mobile will be available May 17 for Android and iOS.
