Apex Legends' Fall: Respawn's Fault Or EA's Bad Practices?

One of the problems with competing against Fortnite is that players expect similar value for their consumer dollar. While the game is free-to-play, many players spend on cosmetic items to support the develo

Recently, EA set the morality bar lower than we ever expected when Kerry Hopkins, VP of EA’s legal and government affairs, defended the use of loot boxes to the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sports Committee. Hopkins stated that "it’s like many other products that people enjoy in a healthy way, and like the element of surpri

In the last few rings of the game, it’s especially important to keep an eye on the location of each upcoming circle. Players who know the map well can anticipate endgame situations that provide opportunities for both high-ground and low-ground positioning. Players who want to win should aim to do everything they can to take out their opponents before this happens, even if this means pushing the fight from a lower le

For starters, there are several areas of the map that are impossible to reach without the help of a Pathfinder. Additionally, there are other areas of land that are accessible to non-Pathfinders only by using a redeploy balloon. And finally, there are also elevated areas that become impossible to reach without a Pathfinder in a small cir

The SLG game guide's objective is to get wins, so it’s impossible to fault anyone for choosing to learn and play this character. The major problem is that Respawn Entertainment has developed a universe of interesting characters with unique abilities, but none of them can effectively counter a Pathfinder’s speed and height advanta

Some people say that a team's reliance on the Pathfinder character is fine because every team can choose to have a Pathfinder on it, which makes it fair to all. This isn’t inherently wrong, but it's still problematic. The game is designed to allow different team compositions to have different tactical advantages when playing together. The fact that teams so frequently rely on Pathfinder signifies an imbalance in the meta at a fundamental le

His last name Nox is a clever play on NOx which is a noun for oxides of nitrogen, more specifically as pollutants in the atmosphere. As someone who relies on toxic fumes to overcome his enemies, it's a great way to tie-in his defining characteristics back into his n

Character balancing is extremely difficult, and it’s really only possible to get it right after significant feedback. For example, when Respawn looked at gameplay data from the first few months of the game, it became clear that Caustic and Gibraltar were being underutilized. And, it was also apparent that Wraith, Lifeline and Pathfinder were either over-utilized or had a higher proportion of kills and wins than other characters. So, Respawn introduced its fortified damage reduction buff and its Low Profile damage increase nerf for these respective groups of charact

If levels truly are split, the game can come down to a situation where the end of the game depends on whether a player has full health or a Gold Knockdown Shield, which lengthens the amount of time they can take storm damage without dying. Further, a player playing as Wraith won’t take damage in the storm while phasing, and players in the character’s portals also don’t take damage while in it. These seemingly minor advantages can be the difference between a win and a l

As a result, many are now wondering if Respawn Entertainment is solely responsible for the Iron Crate Pack controversy, or if they are being heavily leaned upon by EA to adopt the model they have used in their ga

While the options in this scenario tend to reflect play style choices, the reality is that exposing the squad across the terrain is a sure way to draw attention. Consider that a Kraber can knock a person in a single shot, and that taking the time to heal them leaves a team member availing themselves to another sniper s

Caustic began as a research scientist at Humbert Labs on his home-world known as Gaea.