Apex Legends Mobile - Game Infinite Review

Apex Legends Mobile is both fantastic and a missed opportunity. I am glad it is hear, and I am impressed with its implementation, but I disagree with it’s design philosophy.

Allow me to explain. Apex Legends Mobile is not a simple mobile port of the Apex Legends main game. It is a separate mobile version of the game that is not connected to the main, and I really wish that it had been. I can’t blame them for going this route too much as making separate “mobile versions” has been a standard practice of other popular franchises. PUBG and Call of Duty are two popular franchises in this space that rather than making a mobile port, they made full mobile only versions. However, I really wish that Apex had gone more the route of Fortnite or Genshin Impact with the mobile versions being ports of the main game with full cross play and cross progression.

This decision may not cost Respawn anything, as the game is already proving to be popular. It become the most downloaded iOS game in 60 countries last week. I am confident this game will be popular and profitable. That doesn’t mean I agree with this design choice or that my suggested way wouldn’t have been even better.

The sad thing about Apex Legends Mobile is simply that is feels separate and de-synced from the main game. For people like me who have countless hundreds of hours in Apex Legends, skins and weapons, and play the game regularly. I don’t like having to start over. I already had to do that once when I switched from Xbox to PC. I usually play a few rounds of Apex every day on top of all my other gaming endeavors for Game Infinite, so having a separate mobile version will feel like it will split my attention, and I will probably favor the main version. The main version has all my skins, Legends, and honestly a larger bigger screen.

If this game had been any other game other than Apex I may not even have tried the mobile version for this very reason. I was a huge Overwatch fan and was someone who lobbied hard for a Switch port. When it was finally revealed I was ecstatic. However, when they failed to announce cross progression, I never even touched the Switch version. Why start over when I had spent hundreds of hours and also dollars on skins and cosmetics. Why split my progress and level between two platforms?

I feel like if Apex Legends Mobile had been a mobile port with cross progression it would be EVEN better. It would help with player counts, lobby wait times. It would make it easier on developers as they only ever have to update and make content for one game instead of the sort of two they have now. It just would be overall better.

Fortnite is the perfect example (Before the Apple / Epic War) of this implemented perfectly. In fortnite, a play can go back and forth between their PC, Xbox, Playstation, iPhone, and iPad and have the same account, skins, and progression. It is a great way to make the game feel everywhere. I don’t feel punished for wanting to play on the go by losing all my hard earned skins or level. I remember having a team where I had a PC player, a console player, and a mobile player, all on one team. It was cool and felt like the future.

(We have 20 minutes of Victory 17 Kill Gameplay from Apex Legends Mobile) Now I can already hear people concerned about the feasibly of this for Apex Legends. Honestly, graphically the game looks just fine on my iPhone and iPad, so I can’t really see any type of graphical downgrade or issue with that. Also, other games have successfully solved the input issue. Yes it is unfair to have mouse & keyboard, controller, or touch control players in the same match. It doesn’t work, but that’s not an excuse to partition off mobile entirely. Other games, (again Fortnite as a perfect example) don’t section off players by platform but by input method. I give Apex Legends huge props for launching with controller support. So many games that would make sense to have a controller, don’t launch with a controller. I will say I had way more fun playing on my iPad with a controller than the touch controls. Apex Legends should have a traditional port with touch controls and UI changes, with controller support and full cross play and cross progression. In that case, my Apex Coins, Skins, and even all my Legends would be available. Apex Mobile has less than half the legends available at launch as the main game, when it could have had all of them.

I think my point about how a unified experience would have been better for the player base is the fact that the game is ridden with bots right now. The bots aren't...awful; I've definitely seen worse, but it makes the game too easy in the beginning. I understand they want to be forgiving to new players as to not scare them off, but then I don't understand what was the point of the game asking my experience. When you first boot up the game asks if you are familiar with Apex or not. I said I was...and it still put me in matches with lots of bots. It took a while to get out of bot purgatory before facing real players. To give some prospective, I won all of my early matches, was kill leader in each one, and typically had at least 10 kills per match. I'm ok at the game but I'm not THAT good. They could still have had bot lobby hell for new players who "answered new" even if they had done a unified system. I have hundreds of hours in this game, I didn't need boot camp.

Now, while I disagree with the overall strategy they’ve gone with. I will talk about the game itself. Bots aside, it is fun, and one of the better mobile shooters in my opinion. While it feels like a skeleton of the main game, it is still Apex and Apex is still S tier gunplay. I didn’t have any frame rate drops or resolution issues. All in all it felt like the quality Apex experience, well adapted to the small screen and touch controls. I also typically hate touch controls for shooters, but I still tried it and was impressed by it. It is some of the better touch controls for a FPS I have seen. It was actually possible to be accurate even with the less forgiving guns. Also, like I said earlier the game launched with full controller support so it can still feel like the traditional game. I give them props for adding things like a new Legend, new Legend customization options, and for trying to add unique things to the game. The third person perspective wasn't for me, but it is nice to have the feature. They could add it to the main game, and do like PUBG did with perspective based lobbies to ward off perspective advantage concerns.

I am glad this game exists, and will bring Apex to more players and more options. I just wish it had been better integrated into the main game using input based matchmaking instead of full separation.

Thanks!

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