History VideoGame / ApexLegends

''Apex Legends'' is a FreeToPlay BattleRoyaleGame SpinOff of the ''VideoGame/{{Titanfall}}'' franchise, developed by Respawn Entertainment, and released on the Sony Platform/PlayStation4, Microsoft Platform/XboxOne and PC on February 4, 2019, with a Platform/NintendoSwitch version released on March 8, 2021. Inspired by {{First Person Shooter}}s and {{Hero Shooter}}s, players are grouped into cooperative squads of three and pitted against others in matches of upwards to 60 players, where they are dropped onto a map to scrounge for weapons, ammunition and equipment, while remaining as the last team standing.

''Apex Legends'' is a FreeToPlay BattleRoyaleGame SpinOff of the ''Videogame/{{Titanfall}}'' franchise, developed by Respawn Entertainment, and released on the Sony Platform/PlayStation4, Microsoft Platform/XboxOne and PC on February 4, 2019, with a Platform/NintendoSwitch version released on March 8, 2021. Inspired by {{First Person Shooter}}s and {{Hero Shooter}}s, players are grouped into cooperative squads of three and pitted against others in matches of upwards to 60 players, where they are dropped onto a map to scrounge for weapons, ammunition and equipment, while remaining as the last team standing.

In 2022, Lightspeed and Quantum, the developers of ''Videogame/PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds Mobile'', developed ''Apex Legends Mobile'', though it was only active for a little less than a full year before its servers were shut on May 1st, 2023.

** Gun mods work across a wide range of weapons, e.g. an extended heavy mag will work on a light machine gun just as well as a [[RevolversAreJustBetter revolver]] despite their obvious differences. Also, see [[UniversalAmmunition Universal Ammunition]] below.

** Crypto calls Mirage "old man" despite actually being older than him. FINALLY [[Main/{{Lampshaded}} lampshaded]] in the Season 5 Quest when Mirage learns his age (for context, Mirage is 30 and Crypto is 31, but Crypto could be mistaken for someone in his mid-twenties).

* NoOSHACompliance: While the locations are [[Main/JustifiedTrope justifiably]] dangerous in the context that they're combat arenas for the Legends, some of the constructions stand out, especially considering how some of the arenas were used or are used for other purposes:

** One Mastiff skin, The Pest Controller, is a big shout-out to the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem, using its black-with-crimson-and-grey-highlights color scheme and also having diagonal line buttons similar to the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem's start/select buttons on its pump. Said buttons become more transparently a reference to the SNES on its alternate texture, Warp Zone, which also changes the rest of the palette to resemble an NES Zapper.

** Rampart paraphrases [[Music/{{LesleyGore}} Lesley Gore]] in a quote:

** When Rampart gets a kill with her mounted heavy machinegun "Sheila", she might yell [[Series/{{TheOprahWinfreyShow}} "You get a bullet! And you get a bullet! Everyone gets a bullet!"]]
** One of Caustic's kill quips in the Season 7 battle pass is a quote from [[Film/ThePrincessBride The Princess Bride]].

* WhamEpisode: Ashes to Ashes - the final episode of the "Broken Ghost" questline in season 5, reveals that the object the legends were assembling for Hammond Robotics was [[spoiler:the severed head of Ash from VideoGame/Titanfall2]]. The associated story chapter also reveals that [[spoiler:Revenant was seeking his source code as well, and wants Loba to finally end him once and for all]].

* CombatResuscitation: You will be knocked down, only able to crawl and use a Knockdown Shield, if your health goes down to zero and your teammates are still alive. A second health bar appears that acts as a window of opportunity. If your teammates can reach you before the second bar goes down to zero you can be revived to minimal health. If they fail to revive you in that time they have a limited window to grab your banner. If they do so they can take it to a respawn point to respawn your character.

''Apex Legends'' is a FreeToPlay BattleRoyaleGame SpinOff of the ''Videogame/{{Titanfall}}'' franchise, developed by Respawn Entertainment, and released on the Sony UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, Microsoft UsefulNotes/XboxOne and PC on February 4, 2019, with a UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version released on March 8, 2021. Inspired by {{First Person Shooter}}s and {{Hero Shooter}}s, players are grouped into cooperative squads of three and pitted against others in matches of upwards to 60 players, where they are dropped onto a map to scrounge for weapons, ammunition and equipment, while remaining as the last team standing.

* TheArtifact: Despite in-game story releases no longer being tied to Treasure Packs (see AntiFrustrationFeatures above), the season's story tab is still listed on the same page as the Treasure Pack tab.

In 2022, Lightspeed and Quantum, the developers of ''Videogame/PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds Mobile'', developed ''Apex Legends Mobile'', though it only lasts a little less than a full year before it is pulled out.

** [[FinishingMove Finishers]] are a flashy way to guarantee a kill against a downed enemy, and sometimes the quickest way to do so if they've backed into a corner with the high hp of the purple or gold knockdown shields. However, they take several seconds to pull off, during which you're completely defenseless. Season 3 changed Finishers in that successfully pulling one off will fully recharge your shields (something that was formerly exclusive to the gold armor), giving players some added incentive to use them when the time is right, though it's still extremely risky. The safer option is using a shield battery, which takes about as long to activate but can be used without being seen by the enemy, allows the user to move slowly, and is less disorienting to cancel if attacked mid-use.

* ExplosionPropulsion: If a Frag Grenade manages to deal damage to a victim's health, they get violently flung away from the explosion. What usually ends up happening is that the thrown grenade launches them out of cover, opening them up to be finished off if they're still standing. [[RocketJump It's possible to exploit this force to launch oneself around,]] but attempting to do so [[AwesomeButImpractical will likely leave the user on their last legs if not knock them down outright, not to mention it being possibly slower than running due to the need to heal between launches]].*

** A single line of code related to the Nemesis burst-fire energy rifle, a weapon introduced during Season 16 in mid-February of 2023, was discovered almost 3 months later in early May, to have been the direct cause of some SFX or VFX not playing/showing for players, leading to players being effectively deafened and, for example, not able to hear gunfire, or players seemingly taking damage from nowhere, as the VFX of incoming fire was not being rendered. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/136t6ta/dev_team_update_audio_update/ As explained on the Apex Legends subreddit]], one line of code containing a command for the Nemesis to stop rendering its "charged" state particle effect when the rifle is holstered was written in such a way that the command was firing on every single frame, for every player in the match that had said weapon holstered, which more often than not, take up precious space in the list of SFX or VFX that needs to be sent to each player on each server frame, with the list having a max limit of 128 effects, with anything over that being dropped, leading to crucial SFX or VFX not playing for players.

* {{Animesque}}: Even more animesque than [[VideoGame/Titanfall2 its predecessor]]. The art direction is more vibrant with more ColorContrast and less RealIsBrown, characters have more expressive designs, some powers (such as Wattson's electrical effects or Revenant's silencing grenade) look more like superpowers than advanced technology, and the Apex Games BattleRoyale format can be equated to a perpetual TournamentArc.

* CombatPragmatist: As a BattleRoyale game, this is only natural. Using sniper weapons to pick enemies off at a distance they can't effectively fight back at, fighting enemies in a disadvantageous position like those outside the ring, and [[LetsYouAndHimFight third partying two enemy squads who have already weakened each other]] are all valid strategies. Some characters are even built to employ these; most of the Defense category excels when they force enemies to fight in an area they set up a HomeFieldAdvantage in.

* CuteMachines: Played straight with Pathfinder, Crypto's drone, and the MRVNs, and Subverted with Revenant and Ash.

* GravityMaster: Horizon is a "gravitational manipulator" whose abilities revolve around the gravity, between her Passive reducing the impact from falls, her Tactical creating a column of reversed gravity, and her Ultimate spawning a BlackHole that [[GravitySucks pulls in other Legends]].

* NoOSHACompliance: While the locations are {{justifi|ed}}ably dangerous in the context that they're combat arenas for the Legends, some of the constructions stand out, especially considering how some of the arenas were used or are used for other purposes:

* GameBreakingBug: There's a rare glitch in the out-of-bounds detection where, if you jump off of an airborne Supply Ship at the wrong place, the "Return to Battle" countdown, which normally kills you if you stay in an area deemed out-of-bounds for too long, activates ''almost everywhere'' as long as you're touching the ground, meaning that after a cumulative thirty seconds of not being airborne by some means, you're ''dead'', no questions asked. Even worse, the glitch ''doesn't go away'' if you get respawned, meaning that you're essentially stuck in "The Floor is Lava" hell for the rest of the match. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oefMnZqiOCY See it in action]].

[[quoteright:231:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/apex_7.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:231:''[[CatchPhrase They kill you, they're better]]. [[CallBack You kill them, you're better]].'']]

In 2022, Lightspeed and Quantum, the developers of ''Videogame/PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds Mobile'', developed ''Apex Legends Mobile'', and currently is in a soft launch in select countries before its planned global release in summer of the year.

* {{Kaiju}}: Giant dinosaur-like monsters called Leviathans can be seen outside of the arena. In Season 2 to 4, two of these are inside the arena and, while normally indifferent towards players, they'll lift once per round to reveal loot underneath, players can get stomped players to death if they're not careful.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Salvo lacks a formal government. Whoever rules it is the warlord with the most amount of power at the current moment.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Those redundant doors adjacent to open passageways in the long buildings at World's Edge aren't just a silly architectural mishap outside of gameplay functionality. This kind of architectural style is used to prevent fire from spreading; a shutter can be closed to make the open passage inaccessible to fire, while the door still exists to let people through. As World's Edge is a partial LethalLavaLand, this makes sense.

* CriticalExistenceFailure: Zigzagged. Legends who have their health depleted drop into a weakened "downed" state where they can't do anything but limply crawl around and hold up an energy shield to protect themselves, making it a partial aversion; however, if an entire team gets downed and nobody is being auto-revived, this gets played straight and they die on the spot regardless of how wounded they are in said downed state.

* EverythingsBetterWithPlushies: Nessie plushes reprise their ''Titanfall 2'' role as an EasterEgg, appearing in certain out-of-the-way spots for players who know where to look for them. Here, they have a {{Justified}} reason for their placement too: Wattson left them lying around King's Canyon as a child, and carries at least one around with her most of the time.

* AscendedMeme: The Mozambique is recognized as a bad weapon by players and devs alike. The 1.2 patch briefly added a unique weapon swap for the Mozambique where your character forcefully threw a weapon away, as if in disgust. It was later removed in Season 2, when the Hammerpoint Rounds hop-up made the Mozambique actually useful in certain situations. Despite its buffs since, the Mozambique being bad gets referenced again in the Season 14 trailer, when Newcastle {{No Sell}}s Vantage's point blank Mozambique shot, after which she remarks that it mustn't be working right.

* WeaponOfChoice:

*** When placing a fence node linked to an existing one, Wattson can right click to destroy said existing node and, if it exists, place from the node that fence was linked to. Unlike the on-screen prompts to place or put away a node, this isn't told to the player.