Apex Legends is something of a zeitgeist stew, checking all of the boxes of recent trends all the way down to its grandiose but nondescript title. It’s one part by-the-numbers battle royale, complete with the descent from the sky, emphasis on scavenging for loot, and shrinking playable area. It’s another part hero shooter, featuring eight characters called Legends with unique ability sets built for steadfast teamwork. It comes decked out with all the modern free-to-play, games-as-service fixings, including weapon skins, emotes, seasons stretching throughout the rest of the year and (hopefully) years to come, and even the much-maligned loot boxes. None of those borrowed ideas scream originality on their own, but here they come together as something totally new thanks to a roster of personable Legends, a single lavishly designed map, and a smart approach to its mandatory three-person squads. Add great gunplay, a groundbreaking communication system, and a degree of polish that’s all but unheard of in this genre, and Apex Legends has burst onto the scene as one of the most refined and entertaining battle royale games I’ve played.

Set in the Titanfall universe (but conspicuously lacking the signature Titans, falling or otherwise,) a match of Apex Legends is relatively small scale: 20 teams of three compete in a last-team-standing competition on a gradually shrinking, sci-fi-infused map. At first, I was worried about the mandatory squad-based setup, given my less-than-great experiences playing with randoms in other battle royale games. So far, however, I’ve been pleasantly surprised, in large part because of excellent non-verbal communication.

While it certainly helps to talk to your teammates with a mic, Apex Legends has an intuitive contextual ping system that’s better than every other battle royales. With the tap of a button you can call out points of interest, whether that be supplies, enemy locations, or just a spot you think the team should go towards, and your character will verbally acknowledge the pings by intelligently translating what you wanted to say to your team. It’ll even offer up other bits of dialogue automatically, such as when shots are fired. I’m genuinely amazed at how advanced this incredibly simple-to-use system feels. I’ve marked unassuming enemies closing in on our location and watched as my teammates converged on their location from different angles, flanking them without so much as a single word spoken. Likewise, while your search for loot may be turning up nothing but measly pistols and loads of attachments you can’t use, one of your teammates might find and mark a useful SMG for you to grab.

Apex Legends is something of a zeitgeist stew, checking all of the boxes of recent trends all the way down to its grandiose but nondescript title. It’s one part by-the-numbers battle royale, complete with the descent from the sky, emphasis on scavenging for loot, and shrinking playable area. It’s another part hero shooter, featuring eight characters called Legends with unique ability sets built for steadfast teamwork. It comes decked out with all the modern free-to-play, games-as-service fixings, including weapon skins, emotes, seasons stretching throughout the rest of the year and (hopefully) years to come, and even the much-maligned loot boxes. None of those borrowed ideas scream originality on their own, but here they come together as something totally new thanks to a roster of personable Legends, a single lavishly designed map, and a smart approach to its mandatory three-person squads. Add great gunplay, a groundbreaking communication system, and a degree of polish that’s all but unheard of in this genre, and Apex Legends has burst onto the scene as one of the most refined and entertaining battle royale games I’ve played. Set in the Titanfall universe (but conspicuously lacking the signature Titans, falling or otherwise,) a match of Apex Legends is relatively small scale: 20 teams of three compete in a last-team-standing competition on a gradually shrinking, sci-fi-infused map. At first, I was worried about the mandatory squad-based setup, given my less-than-great experiences playing with randoms in other battle royale games. So far, however, I’ve been pleasantly surprised, in large part because of excellent non-verbal communication. While it certainly helps to talk to your teammates with a mic, Apex Legends has an intuitive contextual ping system that’s better than every other battle royales. With the tap of a button you can call out points of interest, whether that be supplies, enemy locations, or just a spot you think the team should go towards, and your character will verbally acknowledge the pings by intelligently translating what you wanted to say to your team. It’ll even offer up other bits of dialogue automatically, such as when shots are fired. I’m genuinely amazed at how advanced this incredibly simple-to-use system feels. I’ve marked unassuming enemies closing in on our location and watched as my teammates converged on their location from different angles, flanking them without so much as a single word spoken. Likewise, while your search for loot may be turning up nothing but measly pistols and loads of attachments you can’t use, one of your teammates might find and mark a useful SMG for you to grab.