I don’t play a lot of Apex Legends anymore. I enjoyed the game for a while, but there aren’t many games I’ve stayed with consistently over the long haul since the lost years of World of Warcraft. These days there are just too many good games to spend too much time on one. However, I do still follow the content added to the game, and with the launch of Valkyrie, I’m continuing that trend.
The quality of the character development, design, and world-building in Apex Legends is on par with games that have far-reaching singleplayer content. Yet, the game itself explores little to no actual story development. Everything that I know about Apex Legends is from the cinematics exclusive to youtube. In fact, if you somehow only played the game and didn’t follow the external content, you could be an avid fan without even knowing about this ever-growing and well-crafted world.
These character-specific videos remind me of Team Fortress 2 and even Overwatch, both of which have cinematics that I love and remember fondly years after they first debuted. While both of those games explored a bit of their universe in comics in addition to their unique videos, neither ever really made me want to dive into it. Especially from a gameplay standpoint. Overwatch’s attempts to build on the story in-game were particularly disappointing as it usually just involved left-clicking robots until my eyes crossed. I’m not too excited about Overwatch 2.
Something about Apex Legends makes me want to dig into the story from any angle possible though. Maybe it’s because I’m confident in Respawn Entertainment’s ability to craft a narrative after putting together Titanfall 2 and Jedi Fallen Order. Perhaps that’s why the bits of a story they do grace us with are so engaging and leave me wanting more every time. Whatever the reason, they need to put that skill to work fleshing out characters and stories beyond the existing character backgrounds. Also, I really need to know what Caustic was up to before he found such a suitable outlet for his hobbies. It’s probably interesting and terrible.
At this point, I think we would all love to see a Titanfall 3. My love of high-flying fast-paced FPS combat is only exceeded by my love of giant mechs. The quality of the Titanfall 2 campaign is on par with the absolute best of FPS singleplayer experiences. I think the best thing that could happen is to have a new game or game-event that bridges the 30-some year gap between Titanfall 2 and the competitive mayhem of Apex Legends. I’d love to see what the writers could do and how they could set up existing and future characters with that scenario.
It seems like Apex Legends is branching out more and more toward different types of gameplay. While I’m not dead set on this narrative driving experience being a singleplayer component, it could potentially work as the original Titanfall did. There, the story of the game was explored as part of the multiplayer content. It wasn’t a great design at the time, but I think it might work out better with Respawn’s now seasoned crew.
Whatever the future brings, I’m sure at the very least Respawn will continue creating characters and building stories that grab my attention. It does manage to get me back in the game, at least until I realize how bad I am at it yet again. However, I’ll still hold out hope that there will be a more expansive look into this Apex Legends and Titanfall universe. Maybe one that will bring back some mechs to ensure I’ll be dragged back in.
What’s your favorite Apex Legends story? Would you like to see a deeper dive and more gameplay associated with these narratives? Let us know in the comments!
