After checking out these legendary savings, make sure you also check out our best gaming Prime Day deals to make the most of the gaming-related savings no matter what platform you prefer. 

It’s important to note that in order to take advantage of these deals you need to be an Amazon Prime member. If you’re not already subscribed then don’t worry, you can grab yourself a 30-day free trial further down the page. So without further adieu, here are the best Apex Legends Prime Day deals we could gather up. 

The best Prime Day deals for Apex Legends players

(opens in new tab)

Apex legends Champion Edition for PC| $40 $27.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save 30% – Apex Legends may be free-to-play, but buying one of these special editions can get you some great extras. This one in particular includes all the legends through Season 7, exclusive times, and 1,00 Apex Coins. Keep in mind this is for PC only. 

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Apex legends PS4 Bloodhound Edition| $20 $17.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save 10% – Apex Legends Bloodhound Edition comes with 1,000 Apex Coins, a Legendary Bloodhound skin and weapon skin, and a few more extras. If you wanna look good in the battle royale, you may want to snag this deal.

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Apex Legends Wireless Controller| $54.99 $49.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save $5 – PowerA’s wireless controller can help step up your Nintendo Switch gaming experience. With wireless connectivity and a cool, Apex-themed colorway, this will have you winning battle royales on the handheld in no time.

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Apex Legends Funko Pops | $18.93 $9.49 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save 50% – If you’re looking for adorable Apex Legends Funko Pops, Amazon has several on sale for Prime Day. The savings vary depending on the character, but you can save 50% on this adorable Pathfinder, and apply a coupon for an extra 5% off.

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Apex Legends Heirloom Toys| $99.99 $49.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save $50 – If you love the Heirlooms in Apex Legends, you may want this for your home office. Make sure you tick the coupon box for an extra $3 off, and you’ll save more than 50% on these gorgeous toys. 

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Xbox Series S + SteelSeries Arctis 3 Wired Gaming Headset | $369.98 $294.98 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save $75 – This deal gets you the little brother to the Xbox Series X as well as an excellent mid-range gaming headset for less than the price of an Xbox Series S alone. Hard to argue against that logic.

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

PowerA Play & Charge Kit for Xbox | $17.99 $13.99 at Amazon
(opens in new tab)Save $4 – This may not sound like the biggest saving in the world but it actually equates to over 20% off. If you’re a controller player like me, then you know that the worst thing ever is being in the middle of a build battle and your controller just dies. I use this play and charge kit so I can quickly swap out without worrying about batteries.

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Apex Legends Shield battery Stainless Steel Water Bottle | $26.99 $23.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save $3 – Maxer has made a handful of Apex-themed water bottles to make your hydration cooler. Whether you want a shield battery, a thermite grenade, or a Phoneix kit, there are options to save a couple of bucks on a cool stainless steel water bottle. 

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Nintendo Switch Lite + 128GB microSD | $234.98 $219.49 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save 6% – If all you care about it gaming on the go, then it’s time you took a look at this fantastic Nintendo Switch Lite bundle. For just $219, you can get a console and a 128GB microSD card to increase the storage (and the amount of games you can fit in your pocket). Nintendo Switch’s are rarely in stock, let alone discounted – you know what to do!

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

PowerA GameCube style wired Controller for Nintendo Switch | $24.99 $19.88 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save $5 – If you’re looking to recreate some of those GameCube memories on your Nintendo Switch, you’ll want to check out this smaller saving on the PowerA wired controller. It’s only $5 off ahead of official Prime Day Switch deals, but that brings it below $20.

View Deal (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

Keyboard and Mouse Combo Set Adapter for PS4 / Switch/Xbox One | $54.99 $43.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Save $11 – This 20% saving on this set brings it down to less than $45 and allows you to use a keyboard and mouse on your console. It’s easy to see that controller players are at a disadvantage in Fortnite so if you want to compare to PC players then be sure to pick this up. 

View Deal (opens in new tab)

Free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime

(opens in new tab)

Try out a 30-day Amazon Prime free trial (opens in new tab)
If you want to get your hands on the best Prime Day Fire Stick deals then an Amazon Prime membership is the way to go. Fortunately, you can try out the service risk-free for 30-days risk-free. A subscription costs $14.99 / £7.99 per month, should you want to keep the Amazon benefits rolling once the trial time is done. 

More of today’s best Prime Day deals

• PS5: Save up to 50% on GTA, Elden Ring, Far Cry, and more (opens in new tab)
• Restocks: sign up for invite-only drops (opens in new tab)
• Xbox: NBA, Elden Ring, Destiny, and more up to 79% off (opens in new tab)
• Nintendo Switch: Kirby, Switch Sports, and Mario + Rabbids up to 67% off (opens in new tab)
• Oculus Quest 2: claim a free $25 gift card (opens in new tab)
• Gaming PCs: Pre-builts starting from just $599 (opens in new tab)
• Gaming laptops: RTX rigs up to 25% off (opens in new tab)
• Razer Blade 15: Save over $200 on an RTX 3060 configuration (opens in new tab)
• Gaming chairs: Racing back chairs now starting from $69.99 (opens in new tab)
• SecretLab: Save nearly $200 on the Titan Evo 2022 (opens in new tab)
• Mice: Save up to 63% on Logitech, Razer, and more (opens in new tab)
• Keyboards: Budget decks from just $14.99 (opens in new tab)
• SSDs: Big discounts of up to 45% on SanDisk and WD drives (opens in new tab)
• Headsets: Half price Razer headphones now available (opens in new tab)
• Monitors: Curved displays from $129.99 (opens in new tab)
• Controllers: PowerA gamepads up to 21% off (opens in new tab)
• Streaming: Elgato Stream Deck now 18% off (opens in new tab)
• Xbox Game Pass: Save 19% on a PC subscription (opens in new tab)
• 4K TVs: Fire displays now starting from $199.99 (opens in new tab)

Check out the best TVs for Xbox Series X, best Xbox Series X monitors, and the top Xbox Series X wireless headsets that we’ve rounded up too.

The post These are the best Prime Day deals for Apex Legends players appeared first on Game News.

Apex Legend developer, Respawn Entertainment, announced in an official tweet from @PlayApex that the launch date is just around the corner. To be exact it’s May 17 and the game will be rated T for Teen.

Respawn Entertainment has confirmed that the mobile version comes with exclusive maps, battle passes and a new character. According to industry leaker Tom Henderson, the game will launch with a roster of 10 characters including a new one: Gibraltar, Caustic, Lifeline, Bangalore, Mirage, Pathfinder, Octane, Wraith, Bloodhound and Fade.

Fade, also called the Phasing Punisher, will be the first mobile-exclusive character. His kit gives him speed boost and the ability to flashback to a previous location and his ultimate is called Phase Chamber, which sends all legends into the void. He sounds like an epic addition to a team.

The conversion from console to mobile will not allow for cross-play between platforms, as Apex Legends Mobile has been built as a separate title. The game remains free-to-play just like the PC and console versions, and it will include the same options for cosmetic microtransactions.

Apex Legends Mobile was originally discussed back in 2019, with a launch date sometime after spring 2021. However, the game was then quietly pushed into 2022, with the conflict between Ukraine and Russia pushing the launch date back further again. Apex Legends Mobile has been in beta since March 7 this year in 10 different countries: Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Colombia. The full launch next week will finally bring Apex Legends Mobile to a global audience.  

You might need some Apex Legends guides to help you get started when it does arrive:

Apex Legends tips | Apex Legends best weapons | Apex Legends best characters | Apex Legends crafting metal | Apex Legends heirlooms | Apex Legends crossplay | Apex Legends skydive emotes 

The post Apex Legends Mobile is finally coming out appeared first on Game News.

VGC noted that Mohammad Alavi had updated his LinkedIn (opens in new tab) profile to read “after 10 years at Respawn and getting to ship the most amazing games of my career it was time to call it quits. A whole range of emotions washed over me after saying goodbyes to the people that had a huge impact on my career.”

Heading over to the career section of Alavi’s profile, he was listed as the “Creative Director on a brand new singleplayer adventure from Respawn Entertainment,” and had held the role since March 2021. Prior to that, Alavi worked as a Narrative Design Director on Apex Legends since November 2020, and even notes that he trained up leads to replace him upon exiting the game.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard mention of an unannounced single player game in development at Respawn. Last year in July 2021, Alavi himself took to Twitter to reveal that the L.A.-based studio was working on a “brand new single player adventure,” with himself as the creative director of said project.

Elsewhere however, Respawn revealed it was developing a “brand new IP” earlier in the year in April 2021. Job listings at the studio hinted further at the new IP, which will exist outside of the established worlds of Titanfall, Apex Legends, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but we don’t know if this new IP is the same single player project that Alavi was heading up.

Check out our new games 2022 guide for a complete look at everything on the immediate horizon.

The post Respawn new single player game loses creative director appeared first on Game News.

Interestingly, of the 2,086 accounts that had been banned,1,965 were seemingly cheating on PS4. Of the 121 accounts remaining, 62 were on Xbox consoles, 44 on PC, and 15 on Nintendo Switch.

Respawn’s Conor Ford – who’s responsible for security on Apex Legends (opens in new tab) – said that this time, cheaters were removed from the game for “dashboarding”, which is when players intentionally quit back to the Sony dashboard before reputation points (RP) can be deducted for a low finish in a ranked game. 

Ford also said the team had further identified a second exploit that enabled some high-ranked players to – somehow – infiltrate low-level lobbies in order to farm RP against lower-ranked opponents. Those caught cheating have been subjected to “matchmaking bans of varied lengths depending on [the] extent of abuse”.

These are matchmaking bans that have varied lengths depending on extent of abuse. Sucks to miss the opening of a new season, come back next time around and enjoy the game how its meant to be played.July 30, 2021

See more

“Banned 2,086 players early this morning for abuse of an RP loss forgiveness exploit (dashboarding) and abuse of a matchmaking exploit allowing high-rank players into Bronze lobby to farm,” Ford said on Twitter (thanks, PSU (opens in new tab)).

“These are matchmaking bans that have varied lengths depending on [the] extent of abuse. Sucks to miss the opening of a new season, come back next time around and enjoy the game how it’s meant to be played.”

ICYMI, Apex Legends was recently hacked by unhappy Titanfall players (opens in new tab) to protest against cheating and hacking in the original game, imploring developer Respawn to address it. Confused? Yeah, us too.

Initially, it was thought only PC players were affected, but it was later revealed that the hack was also affecting console and Switch players across the world. Instead of the usual modes on offer, players were instead encouraged to “visit and repost savetitanfall.com”, a website that says “it’s time we speak up” about the “hacker issues” developer Respawn was allegedly reluctant to fix.

Have you ever wondered why Apex’s ring-designer Wattson runs about “a bit awkwardly” (opens in new tab) whilst carrying her weapons? Apparently, it’s intentional; principal animator Moy Parra recently explained that it’s because the team “wanted to capture this natural innocence in all of Wattson’s move sets”.

Apex Legends tips (opens in new tab) | How to download Apex Legends (opens in new tab) | Apex Legends best weapons (opens in new tab) | Apex Legends best characters (opens in new tab) | Apex Legends crafting metal (opens in new tab) | Apex Legends heirlooms (opens in new tab) | Apex Legends crossplay (opens in new tab) | Apex Legends skydive emotes (opens in new tab)

The post Apex Legends bans 2000+ “dashboarding” cheaters appeared first on Game News.

Earlier this week on June 1, Respawn developer Conor Ford put out the tweet below, stating that the development team on Apex Legends was well aware of the ongoing distributed denial-of-service (or DDoS) attack on the game. Ford’s tweet also reveals that 31 players taking part in the attack had been banned, hopefully preventing them from pulling the same hijinks in the future.

The DDoS situation is being addressed as we speak by our very own @ricklesauceur. It isn’t the easiest fix in the world but huge steps are being made to take care of this. 31 abusers were shadow banned today in the meantime. We care and are just as frustrated as the players.June 1, 2021

See more

If you’re unfamiliar with the term “DDoS,” it’s basically a targeted attack from a group, or an individual, on the server of an online game. In simple terms, the attackers attempt to overload a server of the game, in this case Apex Legends, with a massive flood of internet traffic, effectively taking the server offline until it can be addressed and fixed by the development team.

It’s unfortunate that Apex Legends has been hit by such an attack, but it’s a relief to see that the development team at Respawn were on the case just a matter of hours after the issue first appeared. Not only that, but the developer managed to find and identify 31 individuals taking part in the attack, which is a really impressive feat on the part of Respawn’s security team.

This actually isn’t the only DDoS attack that a Respawn-developed game has sadly fallen victim to of late. A few months ago, it was revealed that the PC servers of Titanfall were sustaining multiple DDoS attacks over an extended period of time, effectively rendering the game unplayable for thousands. As of early April 2021, Respawn said they were investigating the issue, but we’ve had no official update on the matter since then.

Unfortunately, a game that hasn’t been faring so well is Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet. In late March, it was revealed that servers for the game had been offline for three weeks following DDoS attacks, and late last month in May, Sony responded by actually turning off servers for the game entirely, due to attacks targeting community members. So far, we’ve had no official update from Sony on whether the game’s servers are ever coming back online.

Apex Legends tips | How to download Apex Legends | Apex Legends best weapons | Apex Legends best characters | Apex Legends crafting metal | Apex Legends heirlooms | Apex Legends crossplay | Apex Legends skydive emotes 

The post Apex Legends developer is working on fixing DDoS attack after banning 31 attackers appeared first on Game News.

In the trailer just below, you can see Valkyrie in action, with a deep dive on her abilities in particular. This Apex Legends newbie is able to put her jetpack to use anywhere and everywhere, soaring high above the battlefield using the gadget as her passive ability.

Meanwhile, Valkyrie’s tactical ability is letting loose with a salvo of rockets. The new arrival is able to target any area of the battlefield immediately in front of her, and release a swarm of rockets which will swoop down on any players within the vicinity, also dealing damage to any structures like Rampart’s Amped Cover. That’s sure to make quick work of any players caught out in the open without cover.

Finally, Valkyrie’s ultimate ability is a great for repositioning your teammates. When Valkyrie’s ultimate is activated, your teammates can grab onto you, as all three of you jet upwards into the sky, before diving back down towards the ground at a position of your choosing. Valkyrie’s ultimate ability is basically a portable deployment beacon, allowing an entire team to quickly reposition themselves.

Valkyrie certainly looks like an intriguing Legend. The prospect of having a rapid character, able to quickly move both horizontally and vertically, while also dealing out wide area-based damage through her rockets sounds like a whole lot to deal with. It’ll be interesting to see how developer Respawn balances Valkyrie’s rockets and jetpack, the latter of which will hopefully be on a cooldown timer to keep her movement in check.

The daughter of Titanfall 2 antagonist Viper, Valkyrie certainly knows a thing or two about being airborne. She’ll be joining the fight next week on May 4, when Apex Legends Season 9: Legacy officially launches. There’s a lot to look forward to in the forthcoming season, including a new weapon in the form of a bow, a retooled Olympus map, a brand new 3v3 arena mode, and a whole new battle pass to unlock, on top of Valkyrie herself. For more on the new season, which promises to be the biggest update ever for Respawn’s battle royale game head over to our big Apex Legends Season 9 preview.

Apex Legends tips | How to download Apex Legends | Apex Legends best weapons | Apex Legends best characters | Apex Legends crafting metal | Apex Legends heirlooms | Apex Legends crossplay | Apex Legends skydive emotes

The post Apex Legends trailer highlights Valkyries destructive abilities appeared first on Game News.

In an announcement (opens in new tab) today, Microsoft shared the details of plans to remove the Xbox Live Gold membership from more than 50 titles, including Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty Warzone. The message states that the change arrives today “and all Xbox players will be able to access online multiplayer at no charge.”

In a follow-up FAQ (opens in new tab), Microsoft confirms that “effective April 21, 2021, all Xbox players can access online multiplayer for free-to-play games on their console at no charge. For these games, an Xbox Live Gold membership is no longer needed. You’ll be able to download and play online entirely for free on your Xbox console.” The company also confirms that if you only use your subscription for free-to-play games, you’ll be able to immediately cancel your membership, and receive a credit based on the time remaining on the subscription.

Xbox Live Gold has been a requirement for online play on Microsoft consoles since the days of the Xbox 360, but has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, as it’s limited access to certain explosively-popular free games. The change means that Fortnite, for example, will be entirely free-to-play on an Xbox console for the first time since the launch of its battle royale mode. If a game contains both free and premium game modes, however, online play will still require a subscription.

The full list of games affected by the change can be found below, but it’s not clear if or when new titles will be added to the list:

• 3on3 FreeStyle
• Aegis Wing
• APB Reloaded
• Apex Legends
• Armored Warfare
• Battle Ages
• Battle Islands
• Battle Islands: Commanders
• Bless Unleashed
• Brawlhalla
• Call of Duty: Warzone
• Crackdown
• Crackdown 2
• Crimson Alliance
• Crossout
• CRSED: F.O.A.D.
• Darwin Project
• Dauntless
• DC Universe Online
• Dead or Alive 5 Last Round: Core Fighters
• Dead or Alive 6: Core Fighters
• Defiance 2050
• Destiny 2
• Doritos Crash Course
• Dungeon Defenders II
• Enlisted
• Eternal Card Game
• Family Game Night
• Fishing Planet
• Fortnite
• Galaxy Control: Arena
• Gems of War
• Happy Wars
• Harm’s Way
• Hawken
• Hyper Scape
• Killer Instinct
• Korgan
• Minion Masters
• Neverwinter
• Outriders (Demo)
• Paladins
• Path of Exile
• Phantasy Star Online 2
• Phantom Dust
• Pinball FX2
• Prominence Poker
• Realm Royale
• Rec Room
• Resident Evil Revelations 2
• ROBLOX
• Rocket League
• Rogue Company
• Skyforge
• SMITE
• Spacelords
• Spellbreak
• Star Trek Online
• Techwars Global Conflict
• TERA
• The Four Kings Casino and Slots
• Too Human
• Trove
• Vigor
• War Thunder
• Warface
• Warframe
• World of Tanks
• World of Warships: Legends
• Yaris

Check out our list of upcoming Xbox Series X games.

The post Xbox Live Gold is no longer required for more than 50 free-to-play online game appeared first on Game News.

Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment today announced that their hit battle royale game is coming to both iOS and Android devices later this year. Starting at some point in Spring 2021, a limited beta for Android players in the Philippines and India will be taking place, before eventually arriving in other regions at later dates.

In a press release, Apex Legends game director Chad Grenier revealed that this mobile version of the battle royale game is being reconstructed for mobile devices with touch-based controls. Because of this though, the mobile version of Apex Legends won’t support cross-play with other platforms. There’s a lack of cross-play yes, but we don’t know if this also means a lack of cross-save with the mobile version of Apex Legends.

Still, this is incredibly welcome news for mobile players looking to jump into Apex Legends. Respawn’s game only just launched on Nintendo Switch earlier this year in March, but unlike the Switch version, the mobile version of Apex Legends has entire internal team at Respawn dedicated to supporting it.

Just last week, Respawn announced that Apex Legends had crossed 100 million lifetime players, since it launched just over two years ago in February 2019. The developer then celebrated with a teaser image of a new location, which some fans believe is the new map coming to the game in the forthcoming Season 9.

Speaking of Season 9 of Apex Legends, Respawn just revealed the next character arriving in the battle royale game earlier today. You can see the “Northstar” short CGI movie just below for newcomer Valkyrie, a continuation of the “Stories of the Outlands” series which takes a look at the characters featured in the Apex Games, and the stories behind them.

Apex Legends tips | How to download Apex Legends | Apex Legends best weapons | Apex Legends best characters | Apex Legends crafting metal | Apex Legends heirlooms | Apex Legends crossplay | Apex Legends skydive emotes 

The post Apex Legends launches on mobile later this year appeared first on Game News.

Apex Legends has been pushing the battle royale genre forward since its surprise launch date in February of last year, and season 7 plans (including Olympus and the Trident) have been in the works for the better part of a year. “Season 7 is the season we’ve been working on since – I mean, we’re always working on lots of future seasons – we’re playtesting season 12 stuff regularly right now – but season 7 is the one we put a big flag in the ground earlier this year,” design director Jason McCord tells me. 

So, the boldness of this season shouldn’t surprise you. In fact, many of its changes will likely entice both old and new players – myself included, who has fallen off the dropship as of late. I got a chance to see and feel these upcoming changes when I went hands-on with Apex Legends season 7 ahead of its November 4 launch date, and I’m pretty damn excited.

Olympus road trip, anyone?

Olympus looks different than anything we’ve seen before in Apex Legends. This verdant future city floating amongst fluffy white clouds is the crisp, modern foil to the more grounded, industrial maps that are Kings Canyon and World’s Edge. There’s an A24 film aura around the map, like you’d half expect Ari Aster’s next daylight horror to be set on it. Nothing could go wrong here – except your entire squad dying.

Olympus is covered in polygonal terrain that further drives home the notion that it’s a dang floating city. There are open pits dotting the map like the lava pits from World’s Edge, except clouds greet your descent instead of bubbling magma. The city’s skyline features giant, curved monoliths that seem to bend and stretch towards the heavens (you may recognize the crown jewel of Olympus, Bonsai Plaza, as the place where Loba’s parents were killed in the Assimilation launch trailer). Olympus has a few industrial areas, but they’re heavily contrasted against the clean, modern architecture throughout. It’s even so much brighter than the previous maps – you almost need sunglasses to look at it. 

As far as size goes, Olympus falls right in the middle of what the game currently offers. It’s bigger than Kings Canyon but slightly smaller than World’s Edge, which is where the Trident comes into play. Before Olympus, the Respawn devs didn’t see a need for a vehicle; Kings Canyon had ziplines and sliding, and World’s Edge had a handy train. Olympus changes that. “Eventually, we kind of came to a reason why it would exist – to pull your squad together and let you attach abilities and pull off really new plays with it,” McCord explains. “We looked at Olympus and were like, ‘let’s kind of take the Kings Canyon supply ships to the next level,’ and let players rotate really quickly from one side of the map to the other.” 

Adding vehicles to a battle royale is a huge change, and Respawn was aware of the kind of waves that might make. So, the team started prototyping the Trident way back in season 5, toying with its use and how it would work in tandem with the Legends and their abilities. For example, you can attach Rampart’s turret to the back of the Trident to make a mobile death machine, or protect your teammates from enemy fire with Gibraltar’s dome (any damage the Trident obtains will be distributed equally to teammates on the vehicle). But the main goal of adding a vehicle is to allow for a longer rotation that will allow players to traverse the map faster and with relative ease. “It’s a rotation tool, not a weapon,” senior level designer Dave Osei insists. “You can’t run over other players and kill them.”

New Horizons

New Legends are always a welcome addition to gameplay, but Horizon’s debut alongside a fairly open map, with quick vehicles dispersed around it, means she’s poised to drastically shift the meta. 

Horizon is fast, fun, and aggressive (not to mention adorably Scottish). Her passive ability centers around the spacesuit, giving her increased control in the air and soft landings, as well as letting her maintain momentum when hitting the ground – you might not notice your speed takes a hit when you land from a distance, but trust me, it does. Horizon’s tactical ability (Repulsion Star) is a lot like the Gravity Star from Titanfall – throw it down and lift players up who step into its path. It’s a great way to give your teammates a boost, and to throw your enemies off (and up). 

Horizon’s ultimate ability, however, is her crown jewel, and one that Respawn continues to look at closely as it may need some adjustment once it’s on the live servers. Horizon can conjure a mini black hole, powered by her adorable little robot named N.E.W.T. that will drag players into its gravitational pull, allowing you to swoop in and wreak havoc. During my preview, I threw Horizon’s ult behind a lone Loba who had just downed my teammate and was going in for the finisher – it dragged her backwards and away from my helpless Wattson, allowing our third teammate to swoop in and revive her while I peppered my foe with Flatline fire. Team wipe, of course.

Horizon “scared Respawn a bit,” according to senior software engineer Chris Winder. The team wanted her to be “satisfying and effective, without being too punishing or frustrating. “We feel like we have it in a good spot, but we’ll continue to balance and look at it,” he promises. Winder believes hyper-mobile Legends like Wraith will act as good counters to Horizon. She’s all about controlling other Legend’s mobility, and Wraith, Pathfinder, and Octane will be in a better position than most to dart away from an incoming black hole. In short, I’d expect Horizon mains to be as common as Wraiths in this upcoming season, my friends.

Join the club

Dramatically shifting meta and anti-gravity Scottish moms aside, Respawn is dedicated to better serving its player base in the upcoming season. For starters, you’ll be able to play Apex Legends on Steam, another sign of the company’s philosophy about the game’s future. It wants as many people playing as possible, and with the common knowledge that Origin can be a thorn in the side of PC players (it barely worked during my preview), adding Steam into the mix is likely to increase the player base. “I’m hoping that Steam brings back people on PC that tried on Origin and fell off and then just never loaded up Origin again,” explains McCord. “But there’s people who load up Steam every day – it’s part of their normal gameplay experience to look through Steam – and so I think it’s gonna be a shot in the arm. I’m excited about that.”

And while crossplay is currently still in beta, we can confirm that it will exit beta and be a permanent addition to Apex Legends sometime during season 7. That means there’ll be a demand for better matchmaking options – which Respawn will provide in the form of Clubs. Clubs is a social feature that will help players get into squads with friends or like-minded individuals quicker and will help build stronger Apex Legends communities. You’ll be able to go into a new tab in the lobby and either create or search for a club, which can be found through a series of hashtags including #Casual, #AltGameModes, #LGBTQIA, #RankedOnly, and more. “More people go into Trios solo, but the majority of victories are by partial or fully pre-made squads,” game designer Chad Armstrong explains. 

Come season 7, you won’t just be able to play across platforms, but you’ll be able to play with more like-minded people and foster relationships with fellow players. As someone who has rarely experienced that camaraderie in Apex Legends, this is a welcome change – and one Respawn believed was necessary. “I play solo a lot. It’s rough out there,” McCord admits. As we chat about random matched players running off to the darkest corners of the map, he assures me: “We’re gonna have a Lone Wolf tag. My hope, please, is that all of the lone wolves can just join their one wolf club and they can all just go and do this thing. And that’s fine. Everyone’s happy with it.” 

With Apex Legends coming to Steam next month and Nintendo Switch sometime next year, and with season 7 giving the game a facelift, it’s a good time to sort out the Lone Wolves from the Team Players, eh?

The post Apex Legends season 7 hands-on preview: the most innovative season yet and a great reason to return to the fray appeared first on Game News.

As spotted by Apex dataminer Shrugtal, the UFO has popped up in the skies across both the King’s Caynon and World’s Edge maps. You can’t interact with it just yet – it’s way up in the atmosphere and is best admired as you leap from the Jump Ship – but as some canny players have noted, it doesn’t half bear a striking similarity to the ship we saw in the concept artwork way shared back when Loba’s Legacy of a Thief missions were launched.

Here, take a look for yourself:

Familiar…? From Legacy of a Thief art. pic.twitter.com/G1il0izGYEOctober 23, 2020

See more

Is the UFO something to do with new Legend, Horizon? Will all be revealed when Season 7 drops next month? All we can do for now is watch this space.

Apex Legends on the Nintendo Switch has been delayed (opens in new tab), and will now launch next year in 2021, but the Steam version of Apex Legends will be launching next month on November 4. While tentatively planned for launch in Fall/Autumn 2020, Respawn has now pushed the port back to next year to make room for the Steam version and the launch of Season 7.

A brand new Apex Legends patch went live a couple of weeks ago, and data miners promptly uncovered a brand new character within the game’s files (opens in new tab): Horizon. According to the dataminer themselves, the new character will be featured in a series of “Horizon Challenges,” indicating that they might actually not be the next legend joining the Apex Games. Dataminers also recently discovered information of what they purport is a new unannounced mode for Apex Legends: Arenas Mode (opens in new tab).

Apex Legends recently unveiled a new Champions Edition of the game (opens in new tab), which bundles in a ton of extra content and unlocks existing characters.

For our pick of the most elite characters Apex Legends currently has to offer, head over to our best Apex Legends characters (opens in new tab) guide.

The post Mysterious UFO appears in Apex Legends appeared first on Game News.