It only took no time for the new online battle royale FPS game of Respawn Entertainment to become a huge hit in the community. The surprise release of Apex Legends and subsequent surge of viewership on Twitch made Twitch decide to host 2 Apex Legends’ first tournaments, Twitch Rivals, where popular streamers and pro players continuously play for 4 hours in regular servers to see which team get the most kills and match wins. And on the February 13th (during the first Apex Legends tournament), Apex Legends highest single-day Twitch viewership took off Fortnite record.
Apex Legends is a great game, and turning it into an eSport makes sense. There is already a massive viewership already for the game. This means the community pays a lot of attention for the game. Apex Legends has already had the basic background for esports that all games want. This happens partly because Apex Legends is different from other battle royale games. The game has classes of characters, and each character has their own skill sets. With a team of 3 players (there hasn’t any solo mode in Apex Legends), a team has to pick character smartly before entering the match if they want to stand a chance.
Moreover, Respawn Entertainment has built for Apex Legends a wonderful ping system and smooth gunplay (if not to say smoothest among battle royale games). We can certainly say that Apex Legends, on the other hand, is much better-tailored to the esports experience than any battle royale games that have come before it. The game was already so polished at launch that it’s easy to prepare successful, high-profile tournaments for the games
Esports organizations are in the stage of signing pro players for their Apex Legends teams already (namely former CS:GO pro Coby “dizzy” Meadows, who signed with NRG on Feb. 11). As for both the viewers and esports organizations are preparing for Apex Legends tournaments, perhaps it’s time for Respawn Entertainment and EA to level up their game so that the game can be a perfect eSport.
First, Apex Legends needs private servers for tournaments. Yes, it can be fun for us to watch pro players swimming in regular servers and harvesting kills and match wins. But in the long run, we will find it boring in no time. The game is fast-paced enough to remain exciting, so the action has to slow down for a team to work out how to outplay their opponents, as well as for the fans to have some relax while watching. When everyone on the server is a god, no one is, and that’s when the fun really begins. Pro players fighting each other in intensive matches is surely much more worth watching than pro players killing normal players for 4 hours straight.
Second, if private tournament servers are created, the game needs a spectator system besides the current first-person spectator system. The first person camera mode is standard in all esports shooters, but Apex Legends is no standard shooting game. With the skill set that each character has, this game is half MOBA game (like Overwatch) and the third person mode (especially towards the end of a game) is also important, and something that Apex Legends really needs. With both first-person spectator system and third-person spectator system, you can see pro teams outplaying each other and understand the game better. There are a ton of interesting strategies that these characters open up to players. An improved spectator system will allow viewers to see and appreciate them better.
Finally, Apex Legends tournaments need a better procedure. Playing as much as possible in four hours continuously is fun to watch, but also very hard on the players. They have to sit in front of the computer and play for 4 hours straight they have any hope of winning. Yes, we all have played games for more than 4 hours straight for a few times, but this is pro players competing in tournaments, not just regular matches.
The idea of competing Apex Legends for a fixed amount of matches has been proposed, and this idea seems to have the support from numerous pro players. Playing a set amount of games on a private server allows the tournament organizers to set up breaks for players, which can in turn very naturally be used for analysis of games, replays, or advertisements.
Yes, no one can say Apex Legends is good enough to be a great esports game at the moment, but the game is not even one month old yet. And if Respawn Entertainment and EA can release new feature benefiting for esports purpose, Apex Legends really does stand a chance at being the long living esports game.
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