Of course, that's impossible to truly ascertain from our experience so far with Anthem 's early hours , meaning players will have to wait and see if they will be undergoing the gauntlet of tedium that constitutes for the genre's standard end-game. However, it will undoubtedly be nigh impossible for Anthem to be able to suitably compete with a free-to-play battle royale like Apex Legends when it comes to keeping players interested with a steady flow of content. For those in the industry seeking to recreate Apex Legends ' sleeper success, or at least successfully leech away some of its massive player base, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from this week's cramped mix of launches. First, consider the option that prolonged marketing and over-exposure might actually serve to hurt games; while not all games can capture the attention of millions overnight, producer's should at the very least take steps to avoid Crackdown 3 's five-year gap between announcement and release. Second, and most importantly, developers should innovate where others have not within their genre, even if it doesn't amount to reinventing the wh

New players may feel the need to pick up everything - after all, you never know when a Skullpiercer will come in handy! The only thing is that certain items are only applicable with certain weapons, and that Skullpiercer is useless if you're using a Devotion and Peacekeeper. Picking up random items is a good way to needlessly clog your backpack, and worse, you could be inhibiting your teammate who DOES have a gun compatible with the Skullpiercer. Pay attention to what does w

Apex Legends' game map also includes an emphasis on verticality. There are zip lines in and around the map and its hot spots, and there are balloon launching points that players can zip up to and jet away to other parts of the map. One of the playable characters can even deploy their own zip lines for the squad. These systems work well with the nicely flowing control scheme and animations of Apex Legends where players can slide down hills or mantle up to high ledges. If you see something, there's usually a way to get there, except for some of the cliff and mountain tops which are out of bounds. Did we mention that top player Legends will be displayed in-SLG game Building Guide on banners and there's bonus XP for taking out kill lead

Common Loot Havens - Anyone eager to get decked out in the best gear may want to visit Airbase, Bunker, or Pit upon jumping into a game. Pit in particular has a number of boxes that players can crack open, but they'll be very exposed while they harvest all of that precious g

I get it - you're new to the game, and you don't know what weapon does what. So, naturally, you pick it up and fire off a few rounds to see what the baby can do. Please don't do this. Apex Legends places a huge emphasis on sound, and distant gunshots are a huge part of that. Needlessly firing off your gun not only wastes ammo, but it gives away your location to nearby enemy teams. Keep those bullets in that

Why was Apex Legends able to rest on its laurels this week while Respawn works on future content? The simplest answer can actually be found in what was likely perceived by EA to be its greatest weakness: it's near-total lack of pre-release marketing. Leaked only a day prior to launch, Apex Legends set the internet abuzz with the immediate promise of an all-new and well-polished experience that players could get their hands on for the tantalizing price of "free." Meanwhile, Crackdown 3 has suffered from a grueling, years-long embarrassment for Xbox Games Studios that began when it was revealed all the way back at E3 2014, greatly reducing the impact of the exclusive's largely overlooked February 15 release d

Similarly, Far Cry New Dawn feels like an over-familiar and over-priced expansion to last year's Far Cry 5 , a series that has slowly settled into creative stagnation since Far Cry 3 's retooling of the series formula. Jump Force , while not entirely fair to compare with a list of shooters, plays like a fairly straightforward 3D fighting game beneath its enticing facade of playing as Shonen Jump's most iconic characters and doesn't do anything radical that hasn't already been seen in the fighting game genre time and time bef

The Hot Zone is the initial area on the map with incredible loot. Naturally, teams flock to it in the hopes of obtaining high tier armor and weapons. And there's nothing worse than a new player going to it and getting downed in the first thirty seconds while their teammates are on the other side of the map. We understand that dropping there makes for a good learning experience, but if you want to train, play with friends and not with rand

Generally speaking, some sort of long-range, sniper rifle equivalent would normally be a must-have piece of kit for a battle royale match. But while they're certainly not the worst things to have, sniper rifles are a little unimpressive when it comes to Apex Lege