I still vividly remember the launch of Apex Legends back in February 2019, when developer Respawn Entertainment dropped it basically out of nowhere. Rumors of a Titanfall-related battle royale game had been swirling for a while, but it still managed to cross the finish line mostly unscathed, save from some last-minute chatter out of preview events. Fast forward to today, and Apex Legends still sits in the top five most-played Steam games. In fact, after a couple of years of slight stagnation, it’s actually trending upwards again.
This weekend, on Saturday April 11, the Apex Legends Steam player count broke the 300,000 mark for the first time in 20 months – since the Season 22 launch on Wednesday August 7, 2024, in fact. It’s much too easy to get hung up on Steam metrics, and they’re far from the be-all and end-all when it comes to a game’s success, but the trends were clear. Numbers were down from the highs of 2023 and 2024, and the last four season launches after the Season 25 spike have all been lower than the one prior.
Season 28 kicked off in February with the lowest launch numbers since Season 8 (way back in February 2021, not long after the game first made its way across to Steam from its former exclusivity on EA’s Origin app). Seeing it steadily climb ever since, growing by 50% from its first weekend to the high we’re experiencing now, is a great reflection on the work Respawn has done to improve its game and communicate with players.
In recent months, Respawn has been very up-front and vocal about discussing cheaters, server struggles, and other issues that it’s working on fixing. It’s clamped down on third-party devices as well as general cheats, putting out frequent ban numbers to show its progress. It’s posted regular updates and patch notes. It’s held ‘ask me anything’ forum discussions to talk about major patches and collect feedback from the community.
Add in a crossover with Gundam, and there are a wealth of reasons why players would be feeling good about Apex Legends right now. The most striking thing about the rise is that it’s happening midway through a season, rather than at the start where peaks tend to come in. Players on Reddit discussing the rise are largely all praising the current state of the game, and I’m pleased to see such a good vibe among the community for once.
Several remark that they have returned after taking a year or two away. “It’s in a good place now, been very fun,” writes one user. “The game is honestly a lot better now,” agrees another. One comment chalks it up to “loads of small but good quality-of-life changes over the last six months.”
‘Revolutionary_Cap442’ sums up the community sentiment best, describing the shift as “just consistent quality updates, listening to feedback and being quick about fixing issues. Being transparent about tackling the cheaters and server issues. [Respawn] also focused more on making all the guns and characters viable and fun rather than just adding new ones.”
There’s no shortage of competitive multiplayer games these days, between newcomers like Arc Raiders and Marathon, the grand revitalization of Overwatch alongside the rise of Marvel Rivals, and long-time stalwarts such as Counter-Strike 2 and Rainbow Six Siege. While I’ve never been as enamored with battle royales as some, Apex has long been the exception that drew me in, and Respawn is proving that there’s plenty of life in it yet.