Apex Legends has been known as one of the best go-to free-to-play games since its launch in 2019. Like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone, a new season has arrived with significant changes. These changes should be covered because this is the first sign of substantial changes coming to Apex Legends and all Battle Royales (BR).
What are we Talking About
Apex Legends is a free-to-play game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by their parent company, EA. Since its launch, Apex has had seasons dedicated to small things such as limited-time cosmetics and stories to brand-new characters and maps. Season 16, however, is the first season in that no new characters or maps are being added to the game. But instead, several quality-of-life changes and a new game mode have been added.
The most prominent alterations come from the game modes listing. Apex Legends’ secondary game mode outside of its BR was its 3v3 elimination mode, Arenas. After heavy review, Respawn plans to remove Arenas and put in a rotating catalog of the new Team Deathmatch (TDM), Control, a deathmatch with points-of-interests, and Gun Run, a game that gives the player a new weapon for every kill. This rotating playlist will be called Mixtape and will start after Apex’s anniversary event ends. There are other changes made in the game, which takes us to…
What’s Good
A positive about this new season is the remastered legend classes. All 23 legends in Apex have been placed in a proper classification. With this classification, every legend has a passing ability. Assault legends get more ammo and access to red bins. Skirmishers can reveal the most valuable item in care packages. Recon legends can use survey beacons that can locate enemies. Controller legends can access ring consoles and find the next circle. Lastly, support can craft banners to revive teammates and access blue bins.
The character select screen has been remade to reflect these abilities, so all legends are grouped with their proper class. These are welcomed because some legends weren’t correctly classed and didn’t make much of a difference. Players can now have a better idea of which legend to pick.
This next positive could be lost with all the changes, but I still need to give my flowers for the fire range update. The game offered a training ground for players to practice their abilities and aim outside PvP modes. I wouldn’t say it was horrible, but it wasn’t the greatest.
That’s why it surprised me with all the changes available. Dummies can move depending on the player’s wants, such as speed or shield level. Other minor features include dynamic stats to track performance and an infinite ammo setting to prevent running back and forth to get more.
These are small things that were requested. Considering that they came out as part of a brand-new season shows the developers still care about this game. Unfortunately, there are still some drawbacks.
So, What’s Bad
This negative has existed since Control was introduced in Season 12 as a limited-time mode. Team Deathmatch sadly amplified this issue. The Control and TDM loadouts are too restraining. For both game modes, the player can’t choose whatever primary or secondary weapon. Instead, they can only get 5 premade 2-weapon loadouts. Seeing as Apex Legends now has 29 different weapons with the edition of the new Nemesis assault rifle, the options can feel indentured.
Now for most development teams, I would let that slide due to not knowing how to make a PvP TDM mode. Unfortunately, Respawn is probably the only dev team that I cannot say that. This leads me to my biggest negative.
I’m sorry, but Respawn Entertainment has made a better TDM game. It’s called Titanfall 2; it came out three years before Apex Legends came out and had the best PvP gameplay that any FPS gamer could ever enjoy. I’ve talked about this game as one of several that influenced my love for gaming. I will give Titanfall 2 (TF2) its article one day, but I must use it as a reference for better team death matches.
Apex Legends TDM has a worst time-to-kill (TTK), health recovery system, character selection, and punishment system for leavers. All of which was perfected to the punctuation in TF2. I guess it’s a burdened by knowledge scenario because this development company has made a better game mode, and I know it has by first-hand experience. Seeing them take a crack at it in the same universe as that legendary game is more of a disappointment than anything else.
Final Thots
I know some slowpokes didn’t read everything above. So, here’s what they missed:
| Pros | Cons |
| New Classifications changed the formula | Loadouts are too restrictive |
| The Firing Range update deserves some love | Respawn has made a better TDM |
I didn’t express this earlier, but I’m worried about Apex Legends. The idea of this game was to make a successful Battle Royale. Recently, however, battle royales have lost some of their mainstream appeals. It’s the same reason why any new BR that comes out today can’t survive after a year, and most likely, player numbers are dwindling from the surviving ones.
Team Deathmatch is an okay edition, but the fact it even exists now is proof the Apex Legends team is seeing numbers in decline and starting to scramble to keep their ship afloat. If this fails, what happens next? I never want to see a game fail, but I hope they get it together. As for TDM, I will find that thrill elsewhere for now.
Thank you for reading this article. If you enjoyed it, please comment and share it with any socials below. Also, check out my review of God of War: Ragnarök and why it is my 2022 Game of the Year. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow me on Twitter @UrgeGaming_ for updates on the newest posts. Have an excellent rest of your day.
Release Date: February 14, 2023
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, PC
Price: Free-To-Play
Recommendation: Worth to Play for A Week