Apex Legends vs. Blackout: Is the F2P Battle Royale Better than its Paid Rival?

Apex Legends vs. Blackout: Which is Better?

Apex Legends

The team over at Respawn Entertainment announced and launched their new first-person battle royale game Apex Legends just last Monday, and players quickly flocked to this free-to-play game to see what all the commotion was about.

Sure, this isn’t the first battle royale game to hit the market, but it features lots of intuitive design choices that make it stand out from an already crowded space. It takes aspects from the games in the genre that helped pave the way like Fortnite, PUBG, and Blackout.

Apex Legends biggest draw comes in the form of character classes. Each character in legends offers three abilities that offer a variety of different tools players can use to get a quick edge on their opponents. Some abilities are movement based, some offer reconnaissance,  and others provide aerial denial.

These abilities work in tandem with each other to provide a level of synergy not offered in other competitive battle royale games on the market and make the moment to moment gameplay exhilarating.

Currently, there is only one game mode offered in Apex Legends which involves teaming up with a squad of three players.

Solo players might worry about having to communicate with a team especially if they don’t have a microphone, but Apex Legends has implemented an in-game communication system known as pinging, which allows players to simply tap a button to communicate a large amount of information quickly.

The game will decipher what information to relay based on what you’ve highlighted with the ping. Weapons, armor, items, and even enemies are called out by name if you’ve tagged them with your ping. This makes callouts and team play fast and fluid without the hassle of miscommunication.

Shooting is the bread and butter of every battle royale game so it needs to feel top notch.

Apex Legends’ weapons are responsive and offer predictable recoil instead of random recoil patterns. This means players who are skilled with a weapon will be able to manage the recoil and incentives you to always be on the lookout for some of your favorite weapons. It offers a nice variety of weapons as well with a number of different weapons in each class.

From start to finish this is an extremely polished game, which isn’t a surprise coming from the team that brought us Titanfall 2, one of the best shooters of this generation. Apex Legends is a strong foundation to build upon, which Respawn has already laid out big plans for.

Apex Legends vs. Blackout: Which is Better?

Blackout

Call of Duty Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode was an extremely welcomed change to a market that was primarily dominated by Fortnite. When it launched last year it was a great blend of a polished Call of Duty shooter and a high stakes battle royale game.

Blackout has gone through some tremendous changes over the course of a few months, which has had its ups and downs, but ultimately it is a better game than it was at launch.

Blackout offers the fast-paced combat expected from the franchise, while still innovating on the tried and true formula. Adding new areas on the map, new weapons, and even a battle pass are just some of the ways Blackout has changed since its launch.

Developer Treyarch has been constantly balancing weapons and their drop rates as well as completely changing the way body armor works in the game.

Blackout allows players to play as their favorite character throughout the Black Ops history; however, they don’t actually add anything to the game outside of cosmetic changes. When it launched that just seemed like the norm, but when compared directly to Apex Legends it would be nice if those characters had some more personality in-game.

This game is a graphical powerhouse and still remains the best looking battle royale game out there. On top of the map looking excellent Blackout manages to have up to 88 players on the map, while Apex Legends only holds 60 players max. This, of course, could change, but in its current state Blackout offers a higher player count while also offering solo, duos, and squad play.

One of the best parts of Blackout is encountering zombies throughout the map. They truly add another layer players have to juggle when frantically running around for loot or trying to escape another player. Zombies don’t dominate the entire map but the parts they do can really make or break a match if you end up in the wrong spot. A PvE element is always a great way to keep players on their toes at all times.

Blackout had a great foundation to build upon when it released last year and it has continued to do so in smart and interesting ways.

Apex Legends vs. Blackout: Which is Better?

So who wins?

Apex Legends is an incredibly promising battle royale game that is gaining a lot of traction, and rightfully so. However, it needs to be supported and continue to innovate to remain in the competition. Respawn already released their roadmap for their first year and it includes new legends, loot, weapons, and more.

In its current state, it has a lot of great features that I’m sure will be implemented into the other battle royale games, specifically that ping system, but Blackout has proven its commitment and importance in the space. While Apex Legends could one-day top Blackout it simply just hasn’t been around long enough to prove it has the legs to continue this momentum forward.

Apex Legends’ free price tag makes it worth at least giving it a chance and I hope we’re still talking about this game a year from now, but Blackout features, updates, and constant improvement make it a true juggernaut and one that has yet to be toppled.