Game Design 104: Apex Legends case study

A new coming multiplayer game which just released in February 2019 but can push itself to top 3 most-played multiplayer games. You may have heard this name from media and gaming news, Apex legends.

Today we are going to analyze how Apex Legends become one of the most skyrocket games in a short time.

‘In the same universe’ save game studio a day

Apex Legends were built ‘in the same universe’ of Titanfall and Titanfall 2, one of the most successful games from Respawn studio.

If you have ever played Titalfall 2 before, you might recognize that most of the guns from Titalfall 2 has been reuse in Apex Legends. For instance, Wingman, Spitfire, Alternator, etc. It models almost look the same.

Not only guns but also the animations of characters. Such as slide on the ground, peak on the wall. These animations are all the same.

Tactical skills for each character as well, they are all similar to Titalfall 2. For example, Grappling hook for Pathfinder, Gas Trap of Caustic is one skill from Scorch the Titan, area scanning from bloodhound as well or even newly released character, Octane. His skill is similar to Stim boost in Titalfall 2.

What does all of this mean? It means that the cost of game design and development has been reduced. Game designers don’t have to design everything from scratch, Game programmers have less stuff to code, Game artists and animator don’t have to model all stuff.

Yes, there is new stuff that the development team have to work on, yet, ‘In the same universe’ can prevent work from scratch which might cost more resources and money.

Apex Legends come from the same universe of Titanfall 2

Similar rules, similar mechanics, similar experience

Battle Royale become one of the most popular genres since 2017, you may have heard Player Unknown Battleground (PUBG) or Fortnite, which become successful with millions of players and more than hundred million profits from the in-game transaction.

Rules are simple: Grab your weapons, stay in the ring area, kill other players and be the last man who still standing in the game.

As I mentioned in rules, Apex Legends has those same rules as well. There might be something that makes Apex Legends different from other battle royale games, but core rules and mechanics are still the same.

This makes Apex Legends have advantages. Because players don’t have to learn everything new again. They have similar experience before so that they can catch up how to play quickly.

Note: Beware that develop similarly experience games might result in the boredom of players. Make sure that those the rules and mechanics might look the same, but there must be something to make it different. For instance, Apex Legends characters have unique abilities which make games have more depth with small complexity.

Kill everyone else and be champion

Surprise! = No expectation

Respawn Entertainment has one of the most strange ways to advertise their new game by never release any news at all.

They kept Apex Legends project secret and announced it just a small period of time before launch it online to play for free.

This way of game marketing is interesting. Think about a lot of AAA games franchises that they announced a year before actual released, promo a lot on social media, a lot of sneak-peek gameplay footages. This usually results in some problem, such as disappointment in players. Some change in games might not sound right in their opinion or the expectation of another thing.

In Apex Legends case, if Respawn announced about this before, there will be some players complain why they do not announce Titanfall 3 or why there is battle royale game release again.

As mention above, without telling players before and just let them experience it by themselves to see if this game good or bad it the best way to avoid complication and disappointment of fans and players problems.

Note: This method is risky. Sometimes hear your fans and players opinions is an important factor to maintain and fix your games into a good state that everybody expected.

So…

I guess this is all for today. What do you think about this article? Any comments will be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

Cheers!