Apex Legends Mobile Review – “Some mistakes can be fixed, others can only be avenged.”

Apex Legends has gone mobile! Now you can squad up with your friends and drop down to World’s Edge on the go in the recently released Apex Legends Mobile, available now for Android and iOS. This has been a blast to play so far and it came jam-packed with a load of new features and experiences for Legends all over.

We return to classic World’s Edge, long before the Harvester and the massive chasm that split the map in two — points of interest like Capital City and Train Yard are just as you remember. You can revisit those and other locations on the map with the original roster of Legends: Bloodhound, Gibraltar, Lifeline, Pathfinder, Wraith, Bangalore, Mirage, Octane, and Caustic. For Lifeline mains, there is a treat as her revive shield has made a return to provide cover while picking up your downed teammates, something that has been sorely missed since its removal. The game does have some minor graphical/performance issues, particularly a lot of pop-in during the drop, but nothing that interferes with your gameplay. Overall, this is an awesome adaptation.

An all-new legend enters the fray as well, exclusive to Apex Mobile – Fade. Fade’s story is a bit of a tragic one. The youngest brother, he was eager to prove himself to be worth more than just being a lookout so he accepted a contract to find a lost prototype tech suit. However, the contract turned out to be an ambush and his brothers and father fell in the fight. Fade was able to get away using the suit, which phased him into another dimension. When he returned, nothing remained of his family. Now he’s climbing the ranks of the Apex Games, trying to garner enough attention with his suit to get the attention of his ‘client’ so he can exact his revenge.

Classified as a “phase punisher”, Fade possesses abilities similar to Wraith and Ash, being able to utilize the Void to gain the advantage or even to make a quick getaway. His passive ability, Slipstream, gives Fade a short speed boost after sliding, while his tactical, Flash Back, works much like Tracer’s rewind feature in Overwatch. With Flash Back, Fade is able to use the Void to return to a point along his recent pathing. This ability came in handy to make a quick getaway and also to reset as your weapons conveniently reload during the phase. However, your health and shields don’t regenerate during the phase, unless you’ve unlocked the special perk for it, which we’ll get to a little bit later.

My favorite of Fade’s abilities is his Ultimate, Phase Chamber, where he releases a phase cage that sends all legends, friendly and foe, into the Void. If the enemy is behind cover when the cage activates, it also gives away their location, showing an indicator like Bloodhound’s scanning ability does. While in the Void, player movement is slowed and you can’t use any healing items or weapons until it wears off. This means you have to be very careful when throwing the cage because you don’t want to get caught inside, too. This ability gives you a great advantage over your target as you can see exactly where they are and be prepared to shoot once they are out of the void.

Apex Legends Mobile plays as you would expect any mobile shooter to play. You move around by touching the left side of your screen while your camera movement is on the right side of the screen, of course mirroring your controller (sorry pc players who can’t relate). The interface is neatly organized with a mini-map in the top left corner, your stats in the top right corner with your weapons right below, and your health and skill indicators in the bottom-middle area of the screen. Of course, in the settings menu you are also able to reconfigure your layout to your own preference and the game even supports using a compatible controller. Player movement feels pretty decent, though I did occasionally have some issues with jumping up if my character wasn’t facing exactly the right direction, sometimes getting stuck in little corners or just slowly jumping along the edge of a wall or ledge instead of climbing up.

Gunplay in Apex Mobile is pretty simplified compared to the console and pc versions, particularly with how for most weapons you don’t have to keep tapping in order to fire your next shot, even with semi-automatic weapons like the G7 Scout DMR and shotguns. Switching weapons is pretty simple as well, you just tap the weapons icon and the game swaps between them seamlessly. Unfortunately this also got me into a spot of trouble a few times as I would sometimes forget that the other weapon wasn’t reloaded (where’s a gold mag when you need it). You can also do a longer press on the weapons icon to holster your weapon if you need to run faster.

I like that the game uses an auto-looting feature by default, meaning when you stand over a weapon, health items, or ammunition, you automatically pick it up. If there are better body shields, knockdown shields, or backpacks, the game will switch those out for you as well. This system allows the player to be more aware of their surroundings as they can pan the camera around and strafe while looting to see if anyone is trying to make a move on them and react quickly if needed, something that is unfortunately missed for console players. Accessories for weapons are also picked up and equipped right away for you, though this did become kind of tedious if a sight was equipped that I didn’t want to use, but they are easily removed by opening your inventory screen, pressing on the undesired item, and then dragging it out of your inventory.

New in Apex Mobile is the ability to switch between first-person and now third-person perspectives. It felt kind of odd at first to actually see over the shoulder of my legend, but I adjusted pretty quickly and now I will probably use the third-person perspective by default. You do only matchmake with whichever perspective you have chosen, which is nice as we all know a third-person perspective is advantageous over first-person since you can easily see around corners and around objects. However, when you are in a third-person lobby you are still able to switch over to the first-person perspective if you prefer.

There’s no shortage of content in Apex Legends Mobile. The game comes packed with different modes for players to choose from, including your typical Apex Battle Royale experience and Ranked for the ultracompetitive. Arenas also makes its return if you like a little 3v3 action. New to Apex Legends, team deathmatch joins the list of playable modes on mobile, pitting teams of 5 against each other to reach the target of 30 eliminations for the victory. In Team Deathmatch, no weapon is off limits, choose whatever tickles your fancy. Legend abilities are also active, so pop smoke, heal up, throw your fart bombs (I’m looking at you, Caustic mains), and cause some chaos. Team Deathmatch has been an absolute riot to play, I highly recommend it. There will also be limited-time modes, just like in regular Apex Legends, so be on the lookout for those as well, especially if you want a shot at some cool new gear and other unlockables for your legends.

Speaking of unlockables, there are tons of things to unlock and collect. There’s a typical store where you can buy things using your hard earned Apex money and also a Battle Pass which, just like in regular Apex, has a paid tier for extra loot. In the Battle Pass you will also find Fade chips, which can be used to unlock Fade if you don’t want to have to buy him. Completing weekly and daily challenges helps your Battle Pass progress faster and right now there are even challenges to celebrate the launch of the game on mobile for some extra bonuses.

Another new feature exclusive to mobile are perk trees for your legends. Every match you play with a particular legend contributes to that legend’s Mastery. Leveling up their Mastery gives you points to use in a little perk tree to unlock special perks to give you a small edge in combat. Before I had mentioned that using Fade’s Flash Back ability doesn’t regenerate health or shields. Well, if you unlock Pact of the Suit, which is pretty early in Fade’s perk tree, using your tactical ability will actually grant you a small amount of shield regeneration. Continue progressing through a legend’s Mastery to find Apex packs and even emojis of that legend.

Apex Legends Mobile is an excellent mobile iteration of Apex Legends. In the list of console/pc to mobile adaptations of games, it’s easily one of my favorites as it keeps all of the core gameplay and other aspects intact while also adding some new features to the game that will keep it from getting too stale or being overlooked. Compared to when other shooters, like Fortnite, made the jump to mobile, which I struggled with heavily as building felt nearly impossible, Apex Legends Mobile has been really easy to jump into and quickly became addicting. It’s nice to be able to jump in and have a match or two while I’m on my lunch break at work or when I don’t feel like firing up my PlayStation or my Xbox. Aside from some needed tweaks to some of the movement/climbing problems, the game is almost perfect.

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