Continuity Nod / Apex Legends

"Remember this."

—Ash

For a series that seems disjointed from its original continuity due to the wildly different gameplay between it and the original game duology, Apex provides a surprising amount of references to its series history:

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General

• Apex Legends and the Apex Games are named after the "Apex Predators", the ruthless mercenary unit from Titanfall 2. In the "Deep Dive" trailer, the Apex Predator's logo can be seen, and "Apex Predator" is the tier name of the highest level of ranked players.
• The game's Tag Line of "They kill you, they're better. You kill them, you're better" is adapted from Kuben Blisk's personal Might Makes Right mantra heard at the climax of the Titanfall campaign. Blisk even appears in the intro cinematic, much older than in the previous games, to recite it.
• Some of the Legends hail from planets seen in the Titanfall duology: Bangalore was born on Gridiron, Valkyrie on Angelia, and Wraith on Typhon.
• Many of the guns are obvious successors to guns from Titanfall 2. With the C.A.R. SMG added as of Season 11, the only weapons from Titanfall 2 that aren't also in Apex are the Grenadier weapons, Smart Pistol, and all of the Anti-Titan weapons except the Charge Rifle.
• The Leviathan skeletons seen in the environment are the same ones from the Boneyard map in Titanfall; in fact, actual Leviathans can be seen walking on a lake outside of the arena.
• The dropship from the start of each game resembles the IMS Draconis, the massive transport ship used to move The Ark at the second last level of Titanfall 2.
• Some logos of corporations from the previous games show up here, such as Lastimosa Armory's coat of arms being on Ash's sword or Lifeline wearing a headband with Kodai Industry's brand.
• Wraith was a part of and was experimented on by the IMC's ARES Division, the main antagonists of Titanfall 2.
• Revenant is a simulacrum (cyborgs made using human minds) and Caustic mentions having worked for Vinson Dynamics. In Titanfall 2, Vinson Dynamics is a manufacturer specializing in creating simulacrums, and one of its members, the simulacrum Ash, was part of the Apex Predators alongside Blisk.

In-Game

• Bangalore, an ex-IMC grunt, has a voice line ripped from Titanfall 2's grunt chatter (thankfully only said when she's third-partied, instead of all the time):
  "They're trying to corner us!"
• The Season 1 Voidwalker event has a unique loading screen that directly references the level Effect and Cause, from Titanfall 2.
• Flyers carry deathboxes in King's Canyon (starting Season 2) and Storm Point; these dinosaur-like avians were first seen in Titanfall. Similarly, on the maps World's Edge and Storm Point, Legends can fight waves of Prowlers, dinosaur-like predators that debuted in the same game.
• The planetary harvester drill on Season 4's map is built by none other than Hammond Robotics, the same MegaCorp from the previous Titanfall games. Hammond Robotics also responsible for manufacturing MRVNs like Pathfinder and is the corporate sponsor of Forge.
• During Season 5's Broken Ghost quest, players put Ash's head back together piece by piece before reuniting it with her broken-down body stowed away deep underneath King's Canyon, effectively bringing her back to life.
• Some of Valkyrie's banners use the image of Viper's helmet, and one portrays his Northstar flying around a city.
• The loading screen "The Ghost of Viper" features a cameo of BT-7274, his original chassis overgrown with plantlife on Typhon. Viper's Northstar is also present, discernable by the missing hatch that BT ripped off of it during their fight.
• During the Season 9 Genesis event, Bangalore, Gibraltar, Loba, and Crypto all received skins based on outfits they wore earlier in the canon. Naturally, Bangalore's skin "Decorated Line" is an IMC footsoldier's uniform.
• Multiple from Ash, a recurring character from Titanfall 2:
  • As the Arenas announcer, she reprises her role of overseeing gladiatorial arena combat, something she enjoyed doing in Titanfall 2.
    • One voice line she says when the player wins a match is "Toying with your prey? I recognize the appeal.", which a reference to her preference of doing exactly that during the fourth campaign mission.
    • Another one is "You're fighting smart. Maintain your strength", which is word-for-word a line she says as the Vinson Dynamics faction leader.
  • She also makes multiple nods to Titanfall 2 as a playable Legend:
    • Two of her voice lines reference the narration of Titanfall 2's opening cinematic:
      Jack Cooper: "Perceptive, resourceful, and relentless, a Pilot sees the world differently."
      Ash, when selected from the menu: "Perceptive, resourceful, relentless. You must be all these things and more."
      Jack Cooper: "Pilots fight differently. Experienced in deception and maneuver, even overwhelming odds shift in their favor."
      Ash, during the pre-match Champion intro: "Pilots fight differently. Observe."
    • Another is "That may have felt like overkill", which echoes an announcement she makes upon engaging the Self-Destruct Mechanism for a massive underground factory.
    • If she is selected to be the jumpmaster, one voice line states to "stand by for freefall", a reference to the "stand by for Titanfall" lines used by all the faction leaders in the previous game. She also has similar "stand by for care package" lines, for when care packages are being dropped from orbit instead of Titans.
  • One of her dropship intro lines ("Focus. Fight. Win.") from the multiplayer is now used as her Catchphrase, which can be said during character selection, when she is assigned Jumpmaster, and when a round of Arenas starts.
  • Ash's default banner frame is a rendition of her Ronin Titan's chassis from Titanfall 2. An unlockable banner shows it in her boss arena at the end of the level Into the Abyss.
  • Her Passive ability allows her to pull out a Dataknife to Hollywood Hack deathboxes into showing living attackers. Dataknives were standard pieces of equipment for Pilots in both the previous Titanfall games.
• The Medusa vines featured in the comic "The Legacy Antigen" are said to have originated from Typhon, the main planet featured in Titanfall 2.
• Wattson's heirloom weapon has an animation involving a minigame called "Draconis Run", featuring a boss that resembles the IMS Draconis of 2.
• The unique select animation for Bangalore's "Mil-Spec" skin features the male Holo Pilot model from Titanfall 2. He also attempts to use the "Now You See Me" execution on her, which is the Reverse Grip knife stab to the face while cloaked.
• The Gun Run gamemode brings back Skulltown as an arena specifically for it. The play area is surrounded with an Artificial Outdoors Display made of High-Tech Hexagons, a-la the simulation domes in Titanfall 2.

Animated Shorts

• ARES Division scientists as seen in the Voidwalker short wear uniforms in seafoam green and white with red highlights, which ARES Division scientists are dressed in during the past segments of Titanfall 2's level Effect and Cause.
• Plasma Drones from Titanfall 2 appear in the Stories from the Outlands video "Forever Family", pursuing Crypto on the streets of Suotamo.
• Ash cameos briefly in the Season 4 launch trailer on Revenant's monitor, depicting Titanfall 2 multiplayer banner art of her.
• Season 5's trailer has Stalkers, the robotic infantry units from Titanfall 2, attack Loba when her infiltration attempt goes sour, even demonstrating their previously-known tenacity in the face of limb loss when the last one drags Loba with her as it falls. A Stalker also appears in "The Endorsement", wielding twin Spitfires.
• When Blisk appears in "The Endorsement", he hands Rampart a card with the Apex logo on it after seeing her fight off her attackers, extending an invitation to the Apex Games to her. This mirrors a scene near the end of Titanfall 2 when he hands a similar card to Jack Cooper after he wipes out the Apex Predators - even some of the dialogue is the same. One particular shot of Blisk crouching in front of the camera is almost identical in both games.
  Blisk: It's your lucky day, eh? Here - you earned this.
• Robotic combat units known as Spectres appear in Fight Night using their Titanfall 1 Militia-side design with the wedge-shaped head. They also appear in the Season 13 trailer, attacking Newcastle and Bangalore in the IMC Armory.
• Also in Fight Night, one of Pathfinder's memories is watching a live weather report from himself during the destruction of Typhon, which happened in the final mission of Titanfall 2's singleplayer campaign.
• In Stories from the Outlands: Northstar, rings form around Valkyrie's arms whenever she pilots it. Rarely does the audience get to see a Pilot of a Titan inside it; the last time these ring controls appeared was in the Gamescom 2014 CGI trailer for Titanfall 1.
• Also in Northstar, the tablet that Valkyrie holds shows that she's being paid in Credits, the in-game currency used to buy cosmetic items in Titanfall 2.
• Stories from the Outlands "Ashes to Ash" shows a flashback of BT ripping Ash out of her Titan and crushing her in his fist, a first-person recreation of the Vanguard's default Termination that the player can do to her in her Titanfall 2 boss fight, even including some visible elements from the arena she's fought in.
• Multiple from Stories from the Outlands: "Gridiron":
  • Bangalore is hiding from an enemy Ion Titan, visible when an explosion lights up the dust.
  • A villager can be seen chopping a fruit using a hexagon-patterned machete. This design originates in the "Art of Titanfall" books.
  • Jackson's actions while escaping the IMC mirror MacAllen's own before the events of Titanfall 1 - Jackson crashes the ship he was on, Hestia 01, on an uncharted planet and forms a colony there, intending to forget about the IMC. Like Titanfall, the IMC also eventually finds the colony and massacres it, though ironically in this case it was due to Bangalore putting out a distress signal, while in Titanfall the town sent a distress signal in response to the massacre itself.
  • The IMC Pilot Commander Scryer wields a Smart Pistol, a staple of the franchise that only properly disappeared starting in Apex Legends. He also wallruns to engage in their fight.
  • Scryer's helmet is pretty transparently inspired by Titanfall 1's male IMC Assault Pilot, most evident in its "pointed star" visor. Similarly, the Militia Pilot from Bangalore's flashback has a helmet that strongly resembles Droz's of Titanfall 2, just without the 6-4 branding.
• 'Stories from the Outlands: "For Us, Utang na Loob":
  • An Ion uses its Limit Break Laser Core to vaporize a Militia Grunt in the establishing shot.
  • A friendly Monarch Titan drops from the sky to save Conduit's family. The short shows it using its X0-16 Chaingun, launching its Rocket Salvo, and saving Grunts using shields from an Energy Transfer, all of which are abilities this Titan class had in Titanfall 2.
  • At the end of the flashback, the Monarch rips out its own battery and destroys it to obliterate itself and all the surrounding enemies, as a reference to the Nuke Eject upgrade for Titans that allows them to lethally self-destruct.
• The Breakout launch trailer ends with The Stinger of Horizon looking at some device, overlayed with Newton's voice line reminding her of the promise she made to return to him. That device is Jack Cooper's time travel wristwatch, which he used in the Titanfall 2 level Effect and Cause.

Other Material

• In Pathfinder's Quest, one of the things Bangalore competed with Jackson on is "first to meet Vice Admiral Graves", the leader of the IMC forces in the first game. This later became "first to spit on Vice Admiral Graves", referencing his Heel–Face Turn.