Respawn Entertainment’s push into the Battle Royale genre seems to have been completely vindicated. The surprise announcement and simultaneous release also seems to have done the trick, as it feels like everyone is talking about and play Apex Legends right now. That’s backed up by the player counts, which studio boss Vince Zampella revealed has slid past the 10 million player point in just 72 hours.
?x10,000,000
So amazed @PlayApex hit 10 million in 72 hours. #ApexLegends https://t.co/rZmOgNnwhF pic.twitter.com/j68PYHMAfM— Vince Zampella (@VinceZampella) February 7, 2019
Update: Something that we missed initially is that Apex also pushed past the 1 million concurrent players point.
Source: Big Z, EA
Tuffcub
Apex is basically Titanfall but without any of the fun stuff. It’s very well done and I can see it appealing to the Overwatch crowd but I’m constantly thinking “Well it’s not Titanfall is it?” so I’m sad. I’ll give it another go over the weekend but don’t think it’s for me.
MrYd
It’s set in the same universe and will probably make loads of money. So that’s apparently close enough.
How people have fallen for it, I don’t know. Possibly EA paying lots for publicity? Did they pay for everyone to go and see it before it was announced? Maybe the “pretend it’s Titanfall” thing? Are there that many people who fell for that? (Then again, how well have the last couple of “Assassin’s Creed” games sold?)
Although, is that “10 million” active players? Or does it include a load of people who downloaded it because it was free, realised it wasn’t Titanfall in any way, and then deleted it or forgot about it?
Stefan L
It’s not the desire for Titanfall, but the desire for a tightly made Battle Royale that is pushing interest and engagement. Titanfall’s universe is there, but it’s not mentioned once on the game’s website, it’s being used as a shorthand by a number of sites to draw the connection to the developer, who are trusted with making great shooters.
And 10 million isn’t “active”, but I’ve added that there’s been 1 million concurrent players to the news post. We’ll have to wait and see where it heads next, but it’s far from peaked.
Eldave0
Wow, I need to check this game out. Respawn make fantastic shooters so I suppose its not really a surprise that this is another winner. Hoping this makes a ton of money and helps fund Titanfall 3 next gen.
MrYd
Making lots of money might mean TF3 gets done at some point.
Or it might mean it never happens if they can just make loads of money from knocking out some lazy Battle Royale nonsense and make vague hints that “it’s a Titanfall game, honest”
Eldave0
Not sure I would put this into the “Lazy Battle Royale” box. It seems well made, balanced and fun to play. Given Titanfall 2’s poor sales, I see this as a way for Respawn to make back some cash before moving onto their next big project.
Andrewww
I find it quite impressive how this battle royale hype is still going, and how well all of these Fortnite clones are doing. Especially as I consider all these games to be quite generic, and nothing special really, not being worth my time.
And, I guess, Bioware should be really worried now…