Michael Crider
Apex Legends, a Fortnite-style battle royale shooter from Titanfall developer Respawn, has become a quick hit on PC and consoles. After a fairly subdued free-to-play launch, it’s caught on with players who appreciate the sci-fi setting and class-based, team-focused gameplay. You can play the game on PS4 and Xbox One, but later in the year it’ll hit Nintendo’s Switch, too.
More impressively, Respawn said that cross-play is coming to the game in the fall as well. During EA’s Play Live 2020 livestream announcement, Respawn said there would be cross-play between the PC (Origin and Steam), Xbox, and PlayStation versions of the game, but then announced the Switch version after that.
So it isn’t clear if the Switch will be able to join in the cross-play fun, or how Respawn will handle the inherent advantage that PC players get on console players with a keyboard and mouse setup. A Switch version might be considerably weaker in terms of graphics and stability, too—ports going from full-powered current consoles to the Switch’s NVIDIA Tegra mobile hardware have been a mixed bag so far.
But it’s encouraging to see a popular game expand with more and more support. If you want to check it out, Apex Legends is a free download, supported by in-game purchases. Its next story event, Lost Treasures, starts on Tuesday, June 23rd.
