Apex Legends Tips for New Players
By Wyatt Tackel
Apex Legends is a new free-to-play Battle Royale game developed by Respawn Entertainment. Since its release on Monday, Apex Legends has garnered 10 million unique players and over 1 million concurrent players. These are huge numbers for such a brand new game. Obviously there are millions of new players hopping into The Ring. After a number of hours in-game, here are three tips for brand new Apex Legends players.
3. Utilize the Ping System
The Smart Comms system in Apex Legends makes it incredibly easy to communicate with your teammates. There are aspects of this system that are actually more effective than using voice chat.
The ability to ping a weapon or piece of gear on the ground and have it appear on your teammate’s screen is incredibly useful. You can also ping enemies that you see and alert your teammates to their exact position. You can also ping ammo types in your inventory to request ammo from your teammates.
Utilizing the Smart Comms system is incredibly important in Apex Legends. Even if you’re on voice chat with your squad, there’s additional utility to being able to share visual information so easily. In Apex Legends, long gone are the days of asking what building that weapon your teammate was in.
2. You Are Incredibly Mobile
All of the Legends in Apex Legends can move across the map with incredible mobility. The variety of ways to move around the map is one of the reasons Apex Legends feels so good to play. There is zero fall damage in Apex Legends from any distance whatsoever. If you hold the Space Bar (or X/A buttons on console), you can scale almost any wall into the game to reach the high ground.
That’s not all! The balloons scattered around the map are almost like the Launch Pads in Fortnite, and allow you to jump to a new location. Sliding down hills will dramatically increase your speed.
These mobility options aren’t incredibly well explained in the in-game tutorial. If you’re aware of the different ways you can navigate the map, you’ll have an extreme advantage.
1. Team Composition is Important
Apex Legends utilizes a “Legend” system that is similar to games like Overwatch and League of Legends. Each Legend has different passive abilities and unique active and ultimate abilities. Apex Legends forces you to play in 3 man squads, so it’s important to consider what Legend you and your teammates are selecting. You want to pick Legends that compliment each other.
All Legends can use the same guns and have the same combat stats, but their abilities set them apart from one another. If you’re a support-type player, you might want to consider playing the Lifeline Legend. Lifeline can heal her teammates and call down supply drops with her ultimate. Bloodhound is the tracking character, revealing enemies positions and tracking their footsteps. Characters who want to rush for kills might enjoy playing Wraith or Mirage, both of whom are flanker characters designed to sneak in and eliminate their enemies. However, you might not want two flanker characters on the same team.
So far there isn’t really a meta for what Legends to select in Apex Legends. Every composition is viable and every Legend has strengths and things they bring to the table. Just keep in mind how your Legend fits into to your team comp and try and select a Legend that fills a role your team is missing.
All Photos Courtesy of Respawn Entertainment
Apex Legends is off to an incredible start. Respawn has created a fully fledged battle royale game that seems to fix many of the common complaints within the genre. If you’re interested in the battle royale genre, Apex Legends is absolutely worth checking out.
Apex Legends is free-to-play on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC.