EA’s free-to-play battle royale game has reached a huge milestone faster than main competitor Fortnite – 50 million players in its first month.
The news comes from developer Respawn’s CEO Vince Zampella and if nothing else, has highlighted that Apex has only been out a month, and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
It feels like much, much longer than that, right?
Zampella also highlights some interesting stats from the game. He noted that players have used 158 million finishers, 1.23 billion ultimates, 31 million item pings and respawned 170 million times.
None of my teammates will fall into that last category, as they scarper as soon as they get killed. Teamwork!
These are of course just the latest huge stats in a long parade of huge stats for the game, which has been turning heads since it launched on February 4. And for good reason; the thing is bloody brilliant.
2.5 million players on its first day was already a sign of greatness from the team that brought us the wonderful Titanfall series and are also working on EA’s highly anticipated Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order.
When you compare that it took Fortnite longer than 16 weeks to hit 50 million players, the numbers begin to speak for themselves, although it’s worth noting that while the two titles are both battle royale games at their core, they do both occupy different areas of that market.
The key for Respawn now is going to be keeping the gameplay fresh, and having it compete in an already massively over-saturated market. But if anyone can do it, they can. We’re all rooting for you, Respawn!
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Mark is the Gaming Editor for UNILAD. Having grown up a gaming addict, he’s been deeply entrenched in culture and spends time away from work playing as much as possible. Mark studied music at University and found a love for journalism through going to local gigs and writing about them for local and national publications.