This lightweight sniper rifle has a few advantages that help to combat the drawbacks of its weapon class, but ultimately still has a difficult time overcoming them. It kicks out bullets faster than its counterparts, keeping a little more utility as you track your shots and the enemy closes

Apex Legends' game map also includes an emphasis on verticality. There are zip lines in and around the map and its hot spots, and there are balloon launching points that players can zip up to and jet away to other parts of the map. One of the playable characters can even deploy their own zip lines for the squad. These systems work well with the nicely flowing control scheme and animations of Apex Legends where players can slide down hills or mantle up hop over to this site high ledges. If you see something, there's usually a way to get there, except for some of the cliff and mountain tops which are out of bounds. Did we mention that top player Legends will be displayed in-game on banners and there's bonus XP for taking out kill lead

The game's monetization model involves selling premium currency that can be spent on (very expensive) premium character and weapon skins, and the game's loot boxes (called Apex Packs). The Apex Packs contain everything from skins, to emotes, lines of dialogue for characters, and scrap that can be used to craft cosmetics not yet acquired. The best part of this take on the Overwatch loot formula is that there are no duplicates, and the rarity levels of everything are outlined on the official Apex Legends website. In the future, there will be battle passes for seasons (taking from the Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege playbook) that last three months where limited time cosmetics can be earned or purcha

Land Faster - Instead of just aiming up or down while jet-packing - either from dropping out of the ship at the beginning or using one of the balloon points - be sure to swoop down-and-up in order to increase speed. It's not necessarily about distance in Apex Legends , but rather getting to whichever location fi

On top of being initially perceived as a somewhat desperate attempt on EA's part to chase market trends, Apex Legends launched on February 4 with almost no fanfare leading up to its surprise arrival. Nevertheless, Apex Legends has ballooned into nothing short of an enigmatic triumph for EA and developer Respawn, shattering player count milestones at speeds that would have made Fortnite wince. On its surface, it would seem that Apex Legends does little to nothing that this week's major releases don't, lacking the graphical spectacle of Metro Exodus and Anthem , the open-ended sandboxes of Far Cry New Dawn and Crackdown 3 , and the pop culture mélange that Jump Force provides. But it stands out from the throng, largely thanks to its simple-yet-enthralling gameplay loop, well-refined Titanfall gunplay and movement systems, and refreshing additions and improvements to the battle royale form

The Hemlok fulfills the role of the standard, three round burst firing assault rifle that you're probably familiar with from every other FPS game. While it manages to succeed in playing the role, it doesn't tend to do it overly well at any po

Respawn entertainment has also already clearly outlined its future plans, and Apex Legends is designed to be modular in a way that we can see plenty of interesting events and tweaks coming. Imagine a mode with larger squads, different gear, or changes to the map. It's all possi

Taking the dubious honor of this list's bottom entry is this unremarkable semi-auto pistol. The magazine size is best described as claustrophobic and it has the weakest damage output in the game, barring maybe the melee attack. But even that has redeeming qualit

Apex Legends is a wonderfully exciting and fun shooter that's easy to play but challenging to master given all of its systems and the gameplay potential they offer. There may be issues of character and weapon balancing, and for some, the long time-to-kill rate may be a turnoff, but for anyone looking to squad up with exactly two friends (again, for free), it's shocking how Apex Legends plays so much better than other games in the mar

Yeah, yeah. I know, this list is for weapons. And really, the melee option isn't fantastic in terms of damage. But it has a few utility roles that often get overlooked or simply undiscovered by new players, making it largely more useful than the preceding collection of subpar weapo

**Apex Legends ** may not be the Titanfall 3 some fans were hoping for from developer Respawn Entertainment but it's the best battle royale game on the market. Respawn and publisher Electronic Arts' surprise release is instead a spinoff of the Titanfall series but barely resembles the mech-heavy, wall-running g

Why was Apex Legends able to rest on its laurels this week while Respawn works on future content? The simplest answer can actually be found in what was likely perceived by EA to be its greatest weakness: it's near-total lack of pre-release marketing. Leaked only a day prior to launch, Apex Legends set the internet abuzz with the immediate promise of an all-new and well-polished experience that players could get their hands on for the tantalizing price of "free." Meanwhile, Crackdown 3 has suffered from a grueling, years-long embarrassment for Xbox Games Studios that began when it was revealed all the way back at E3 2014, greatly reducing the impact of the exclusive's largely overlooked February 15 release d