Alberto LLoria is a writer at our Spanish partner site 3DJuegos.com and has been playing the Battle Royal Apex Legends since release. But he’s noticed that Apex Legends Mobile seems to be of greater importance to EA, which makes him feel uneasy.
Battle royales have taken over many, many genres in multiplayer. For years we lived in a situation where we saw more and more multiplayer as a game mode in story titles that didn’t necessarily need an online component.
This shift in the online genre towards massively multiplayer titles, not necessarily related to MMOs, has seen a very rapid, unforeseen and important evolution to mobile devices.
The importance of these small devices that we all own is remarkable in the field of video games and the battle royal games didn’t want to miss out on their advantages.
With Apex Legends Mobile, the latest title on the ship of versions for mobile devices – at least until Warzone Mobile comes out – something very strange and even terrifying has happened for the player who is close to the title. Namely, Electronic Arts seems to have given this version a privileged place compared to its counterpart on PC.
I’ve been a Battle Royale player since it came out no less than three years ago and like me, many other players have stuck with the game despite the significant changes it has undergone.
EA has separated the mobile version of Apex Legends – which is amazingly solid and on par with Fortnite and Call of Duty (not Warzone) – from the “original game” and brought it as a standalone title that even outperforms the original.
But how is that possible? Aside from the graphics, which are clearly tailored for mobile devices, we’re talking about a particular interest on the part of Electronic Arts in incorporating everything the community has been asking for on the PC and console versions.
It’s not only that the mobile version has exclusive skins and characters, after all you have to attract attention, but also that the game runs better in general.
One of the problems that has plagued the PC and console versions of the game is that Electronic Arts has failed to give the game’s servers the most importance during key stages.
The arrival of new seasons, normal in this type of Free2Play title, can be summed up with an almost certain downtime over a period of several hours, which in some cases prevents players from enjoying their favorite game.
Respawn Entertainment has struggled with these elusive servers for a while, but the mobile game has dedicated servers with surprising stability.
Furthermore, it is an online infrastructure that allows you to set up your own games with your own parameters and even passwords to prevent unwanted access by other players.
Many of the characters have reverted to a previous state. Some characters, such as Lifeline, have even regained features that were removed from the character years ago, resulting in a usage rate of less than 5% globally.
Anything that could lead to satisfying the players with a stable online mode has completely bypassed the base game.
Apex Legends Mobile has mode and map rotation. In fact, we can choose which map we want in all game modes without being aware of what daily rotation is being played. In addition, even the rewards have been revised and the focus has been placed on fun gameplay, apart from the log-in requirement that is in the foreground in the “full version” of the game.
Away from the comparisons, what does all this tell us? Apex Legends is being devoured by itself on a different platform, which is odd enough.
Respawn’s situation seems to show us that they want to look good with a new breed of audience, giving in and doing anything for them while everyone else just looks on impassively.
It’s nothing we’ve never seen before. After all, with a new product, it pays to “spoil” potential players. But it is the first time that we experience such a situation where a rather secondary product devours its main version and one no longer coexists. The result of this, plus the impatience of the main game players, makes me feel uneasy.
This article originally appeared on gaming site 3DJuegos, our partner. Like MeinMMO, GameStar and GamePro, 3DJuegos is part of the Webedia network. We translated it into German.