Just when you thought that battle royale games had outlived their hype, we were greeted with a new title in the form of Apex Legends. I know, it may not be the most catchy name but this free-to-play game from Respawn, the game studio behind the renowned Titanfall titles, feels like a breath of fresh air and has been drawing a ton of interest since its debut earlier last week.
Note: All the tips and tricks listed below have been tested on the PC version of the game, but should be accessible on PS4 and Xbox consoles as well.
Before every match kicks off, each member of your three-man squad is required to pick which character, known as legends, they want to play as. Each legend has its own unique abilities and since you’re new to the game, you shouldn’t worry about picking the right one for you. Just pick one and explore what each of them has to offer.
I usually love playing as Bloodhound or Pathfinder because of their ability to track players and climb up to any location using grapples or ziplines respectively.
As I just told you, each character in Apex Legends has its own unique abilities and if you want to learn what all they are, you can do that simply by hovering over a legend on the selection page and hitting the right mouse button. You’ll then see the passive (activates automatically), tactical (activated by pressing Q), and ultimate (takes time to become available and activated by pressing Z) abilities.
3. Dropping In is No Hassle!
If you have played PUBG, be it on mobile or PC, then you know you can pin locations you want to land at and loot up with your teammates. However, it’s a chore to talk about the same and land together. Well, Apex Legends brings the same functionality in the fold but builds upon it by assigning one of the members the job of dropping off the dropship.
One of my favorite things about Apex Legends is that it informs you about the tier of loot (where good, average or bad loot spawns) available in each location as you enter it – right below the name of the location. There are a ton of locations with high tier loot, such as the Bunker, Airbase, or the Hydro Dam.
However, if you fancy having the absolute best gear right off the bat, well, then either the floating Supply Ship or the Hot Zone are your best bets in Kings Canyon. You can see the former flying on the map, so mark it and try to stick a landing on it, else the circular blue zone is where everyone will be headed. Be quick to loot and shoot or you’ll be eliminated.
While most battle royale titles need you to communicate over voice with teammates for everything, Apex Legends has vastly simplified the process. You can now simply point at gear or weapons and press on the middle mouse button to ping the location of the same to your team. It’s possible you don’t need that gear, but your friendly squadmates might.
I know most of us hoard gear in-game – be it attachments, meds, boosters, shield, and other items, and I’m guilty of this too. I start collecting anything and everything after I land in order to have the perfect gear but there’s a lot of unnecessary stuff at the start there. The inventory spots are shown by tiny square icons at the bottom of your HUD and they’re limited but backpacks help increase those.
Unlike in PUBG, you don’t need to remember what all types of ammo are there in Apex Legends and what gun requires which of those – a heavy mag or shotgun one. Well, it’s because everything from weapons, shields, and helmets in Apex Legends is color-coded and it’s the most sound implementation to date.
8. Picking the Right Kind of Ammo
Well, if color is being your enemy and you want a better way of knowing which ammo fits your weapon then I have the perfect suggestion for you. When you’re running over all the ammo scattered about Kings Canyon in Apex Legends, you will see a silhouette of the weapon you have in your inventory next to the pop-up over the ammo rounds.
Since we are on the subject of loot, I would suggest you to be on the lookout for supply bins and loot ticks. While the former are huge cylindrical bins and easy to spot, the loot ticks are pyramidical bots that light up and are fewer in number.
Both of them are randomly hidden around the map and you have the opportunity to search and loot them to gear up. They will often contain some of the most favored gear including weapons, attachments, ammunition, and even shield or helmets. I love to find scopes and shield batteries in the supply bins and it’s awesome!
Apex Legends is really well-designed, keeping the ease of the players in mind, and thus, it also color-codes the damage you deal other players. This relates to the color codes assigned to your protective gear, i.e the helmet and shield, which are represented using white for Level 1, blue for Level 2, and purple for Level 3.
I know, after reading the title, you must be thinking that it’s a well-known fact that you’ll run faster when you holster your weapon. And I certainly agree with you but Apex Legends is pretty fast-paced and tapping the ‘number 3’ key while running to the subsequent circle, holsters the weapon.
You can use this tip to quickly escape fights, flank or run into safe zones. And if you can combine it with continuous sliding, then it can help you reach the target location (which you can ping to squadmates) a lot faster.
One of the most essential abilities in Apex Legends is sliding. You can hold down on the “Left Ctrl” key to slide and I bet you, it comes in pretty handy during gameplay all the time. After you’ve holstered the weapon, you can slide downhill to move even faster and sliding is going to make all the difference when you’re fighting an enemy too.
Yes, you read that right PUBG fans. I know there have been times you’ve been stuck at mountain tops, too afraid to take the leap because it might kill you instantly. Well, Apex Legends takes a different turn here and you can jump down from any height, be it a ledge or tower, without fear because you won’t suffer any fall damage.
The same goes for firing at enemies when your squad is around. Don’t be afraid and just fire away. Throw smoke grenades and take down enemies because your bullets won’t be causing any damage to your team – but they might come in the way of your shots, so do keep that in mind.
When you find yourself running around Kings Canyon, I’m sure you will notice these red balloons tied to a rope at many different locations. Well, these are super handy and help you quickly travel long distances – moving from one location to another. How, you ask?
14. Climb Walls To Reach Places
While you can single jump (hitting the space bar once) to traverse most of the terrain in Apex Legends, it’s not that simple to get on top of buildings, or huge mountains or rocks. However, it’s possible to climb over ledges or building walls that may look impossible at first, by running towards it, jumping and holding the forward (W) key.
#ApexLegends PRO TIP: you can wall-climb to higher areas by jumping and pushing forward. It’s not covered in the tutorial but is essential!
15. Mute Annoying Squad Mates
I know we just discussed how you can easily play the game without having to talk with anyone in-game, however, it does not mean that voice comms haven’t been baked into Apex Legends. It’s possible to converse with squad mates, but if you feel like a random player is talking too much and getting on your nerves, then go ahead and mute them.
In all the other battle royale games that you might have played to date, you become a spectator the moment you are killed by the enemy. However, Apex Legends takes the fun a step further, increasing player retention, by granting you the ability to bring eliminated squad members back into the game.
Yes, if one of your squad members is killed in a fight, you have a few seconds to locate their loot box and grab the recovery badge. Once you do that, you can take the badge over to one of the many respawn beacons (as seen above) splayed across the map and respawn your squad members.
Apex Legends is certainly refreshing but the feature that makes it further exciting is the ability to craft items.
While I like the crafting abilities of this battle royale game, the process of collecting craft points can be tedious and you may have the urge to buy Apex Packs to craft more.
While you can scour for high tier loot in the locations we’ve listed above, you should also keep an eye out for incoming drop pods as they carry some of the greatest loot – especially weapons, attachments, and shields of legendary status. And oh my, they’ve some awesome benefits.
In Apex Legends, if you’ve knocked down by an enemy, there’s a way to revive yourself too. I’m not kidding since if you get your hands on a legendary knockdown shield from some drop ship or loot tick, then you will see the option to revive yourself on the screen after you’re knocked down by an enemy.
However, it can be a little risque in intense firefights or close combat as the enemy can eliminate you before you get the chance to get yourself back in the game. Still, isn’t it awesome that you can come back into the game all by yourself without a helping hand from your teammates?
Finally, after all the tips and tricks in our arsenal, let us talk about the best weapons and which ones should you try to pick up to deal the most damage to your enemies. Well, the armory in Apex Legends sure is flush with a variety of assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, and sniper rifles and the best ones are as under:
SEE ALSO: 30 Cool PUBG Mobile Tips and Tricks to Get that Chicken Dinner
Amongst the plethora of battle royale games that you can choose to play right now, Apex Legends seems to be the most refreshing. It has got the perfect blend of realistic weapon mechanics and characters, and also it’s free-to-play, which is the main reason that a hoard of people are gravitating towards it.
