EA's Apex Legends carries over the fast-paced and extremely polished mechanics from Respawn's Titanfall games to create unique and addictive gameplay that hasn't truly been replicated yet. It marries hero-based shooters with battle royale mechanics, but that's not what's the most special about it.
Apart from refraining to implement pay-to-win microtransactions, Apex Legends has spread good around the industry and its community in a bunch of subtle-yet-effective ways. The biggest overlying theme in this regard is the Legends, which give due representation to all communities.
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Diversity, simply, is necessary, as it allows players to feel a tangible sense of attachment to the world at hand. Most games like Apex Legends have a realized world with some form of history behind them, and most of it revolves around a particular set of characters, which in this case, are the different Legends. Featuring likable and relatable characters are one of the best ways to immerse the players and give them a sense of belonging, which can implore them to keep coming back time after time.
That being said, giving due respect to the different communities at hand is no easy feat. Many forms of media such as games or movies fall into a trope of just featuring a couple of communities and missing out on a bunch more. Furthermore, another classic trope revolves around giving the underrepresented communities the most stereotypical characteristics, which can be offensive for many.
Apex Legends currently boasts a collection of unique legends. All of them belong to different backgrounds and the sheer number of them currently guarantees that a lot of cultural or geographical backgrounds are covered. Fans seem to very happy about the representation of women or color in the roster. Respawn Entertainment has also managed to give the LGBTQ community representation with characters like Gibraltar, who is gay, and Bloodhound, who is non-binary.
The best part about it is the way these legends exist in the game: none of them are stereotypical in any sense. Fans who wish to seek more can definitely dive deeper into Apex Legends' lore, which is storied well. There is a careful balance about how much of the story gets revealed to players up front, in order to make themselves feel identified and represented. Leaving too much of it shrouded and open to interpretation for fans make them feel less realized and too much saturation will cause them to be highly specific, and hurt those relatable aspects.
The representation and diversity on offer have also indirectly urged a bunch of other games like Valorant to put more thought into the matter, and many can agree that this makes these games all the better for a greater audience.
Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Switch version in development.