After the success of the battle royale game “Fortnite,” Respawn Entertainment has released a free to play battle royale game called “Apex Legends.” In the first week “Apex” has reached 25 million players and is gaining publicity fast and early for its amazing heads up display (HUD) and easy-to-learn mechanics; new players have an easier time playing when starting out due to the easy learning curve.

“Apex Legends” is a mix between “Call of Duty Blackout” and “Overwatch,” with eight different legends or characters to play, although, only six of the legends are free to play currently. Each legend comes with a passive, tactical and ultimate ability which makes all legends feel smooth to play. Instead of following the path of traditional battle royale games with the ability to play in duos or squads, “Apex” only allows formations of teams of three.

All the legends and guns feel balanced, except for a few including the peacekeeper with the precision choke attachment. Some guns players don’t pick up because of how weak they are in game like the mozambique. The game doesn’t make players want to rage quit like other games.

As it was released recently, it’s not a game trying to get money from you like other games out right now. Players can have everything in the game without spending any money. Every time you level up, you receive apex packs. These give you cosmetic items, which don’t help your ability in game, as they are solely for character customization. There is an item called a heirloom and only one Legend wraith has it so far. With a one percent drop rate it’s the rarest item in the game.

An annoying feature of the game is the shield mechanic. If a player doesn’t have purple or gold armor, he or she can’t win due to how fragile other armors are. Because armor is found randomly across the map and based off luck, this may draw away players.

Another frustrating part of the game is how long it can take to hop into games. You can wait up to two minutes to arrive in a server. With “Apex” having an abundant of concurrent players, you would think they would fix that. The game lags frequently; players have lost numerous games because of how much it lags and have even been thrown out of games midway because of the crashes. Developers need to focus on this for the next update to keep people wanting to play.

Players can’t wait for when this game becomes more competitive, like a ranking system or tournaments. Also, watching pro players in tournaments for money will be fun to watch for casual players and will make Twitch even more popular.

“Apex Legends” is an interesting game and even though it’s another battle royale game, it doesn’t feel like it. Everyone should give it a chance. “Apex” adds a new feel to the battle royale genre that is sure to receive more players soon. It receives 9 out of 10 stars for changing ways to communicate in game like with the ping system that allows players to correspond to their teams without the need of mics. This is sure to be adopted soon for other games.