REVIEW - Apex Legends: Legacy Had A Wonky Start, But Arenas Is A Win
If at first you don’t succeed, reboot the servers.
By Jonathan Garrett
10/05/21
Reviewed on Xbox Series X (via backwards compatibility).
There’s no doubting Respawn’s prowess in the battle royale space, and with a dedicated second studio in Vancouver taking over duties for Apex, the future is bright for what is arguably still the best game of its type currently available. Legacy represents another big step forward, that also successfully incorporates elements of Titanfall’s lore; a notable bump in player interest on Steam and console for that painfully under appreciated second instalment was another tangential benefit.
Still, despite leading the pack in terms of balance and feel, this latest Season got off to a rocky beginning. The servers were inconsistent and mostly inaccessible on launch day, which continued intermittently for a short while afterwards. On the one hand, when you hit the 100 million player mark, and take a quick gander on social media / Twitch, I feel like EA / Respawn could have done a better job preparing for the obvious influx of players. That being said, it’s also kind of a good problem; being overwhelmed with interest, especially in such a competitive scene, is an indication of a hungry player base.
Once things smoothed out and I could actually… log in, it became immediately apparent that this was a substantial update. The clear standout is Arenas, a round based, 3v3 deathmatch where you decide where to spend resources and build your loadout. It’s fast, requires good co-ordination, and essentially provides a training ground for hot drops. I had a blast, and although there’s currently only two bespoke maps (with three others featuring recycled chunks of existing BR spaces), it’s a fantastic foundation to build upon in subsequent Seasons.
The Bocek Bow is a neat addition, requiring precision aiming and careful timing to leverage effectively. New Legend “Valkyrie” is, at first glance, a worrying pitch; a vertically capable character with an Ultimate that essentially allows you and your entire squad to redeploy at a moments notice. Fortunately, there are a couple of excellent wrinkles that help maintain balance in combat. She can’t shoot whilst actively hovering using her jet pack, and while her Missile Swarm deploys quite quickly, their landing position is clearly marked. She slots in nicely with the other characters, and will certainly shake up combat encounters.
Throw in a whole bunch of new unlockable comics and an infestation encroaching the Olympus map, and you’ve got a healthy cocktail of exciting additions. Now about that cross platform progression…
I always appreciate good key art. Apex is no exception.
WORTH IT?
At the bottom of every game review, we ask the question: Worth it? And the answer is either “Yeah!” or “Nah”, followed by a comment that sums up how we feel. In order to provide more information, we also have “And” or “But”, which follows up our rating with further clarification, additional context for a game we love, or perhaps a redeeming quality for a game we didn’t like.
YEAH!
Apex Legends: Legacy is a feature rich update, and the new Arenas mode is a lot of fun.
BUT
This was the roughest new Season launch for Apex in recent memory. Some work is needed on those servers.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
