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
With a teammate playing as Octane, his stim ability only adds more speed to the chaos, and players looking for an ideal composition to catch enemies by surprise will need to look no further. Additionally, with the introduction of new Perks, Octane takes substantially less damage when using his stim ability. It should be noted, though, that the speed boost doesn’t stack up. As such, players using Octane’s stim will not get an additional boost with Ballistic or Mad Maggie’s Ultimate abil
That leaves only Anthem , whose global February 22 launch will mark the only proper live-service competitor to Apex Legends . Though Anthem is unquestionably beautiful and has thrilling combat and movement that Crackdown developers ought to take note of, there is the unavoidable fact that it is EA's answer to Destiny , and the online loot-shooter genre Anthem 's obvious source material spawned is marred by a series of hard-to-avoid caveats. It does more to ensure that players won't be locked out of certain time-limited content by providing matchmaking in areas that the Destiny franchise neglects, but (as EA has clearly done its homework) it's difficult to not fear that launch content will prove much more sparse than initially expected, much as it was in both Destiny entr
This strange, triple-barreled shotgun-pistol hybrid handles poorly, and necessitates frequent, sluggish reload animations. The only upside is that if you come face to face with another poorly equipped looter in the early game, you'll be able to kick out surprising amounts of dam
After playing Apex Legends for a few hours, you quickly learn that this game is all about mobility, climbing, Titanfall Nostalgia and quickly moving through whatever terrain and obstacles stand in your way. Often, the players that can move quickly through a town or large building are the ones who succeed. Sneaking around, taking alternate routes, and surprising your enemies is the name of the g
It's an unreliable tactic for a number of reasons. First of all, this game is incredibly fast. Players zip and dash around the map at all times. They're hard enough to hit at medium ranges. But when you're looking down a scope at these players from a far distance, it's incredibly hard to "lock on" to the enemy. There's also bullet drop in this game, which means you have to aim way higher at long distances, and lead your targets when they're mov
Metro Exodus is a diamond in the rough here in terms of its gameplay and story, with the other releases this week falling agonizingly flat in one area or the other. While Apex Legends is being universally lauded for its impressive blend of frenzy and strategy, as well as for its revolutionary ping system that makes teamplay easier and more integral than in any shooter before it, February has brought little else in the way of gameplay innovation. Crackdown 3 is a fairly mindless power fantasy sandbox, which is great for players seeking that experience, but disappointing to others due to how few additions it brings to the table when compared with the 12-year-old initial entry into the ser
That situation is likely salvageable due to the otherwise full-priced game's instant addition to the subscription-based Xbox Game Pass service, but missteps taken by Metro Exodus publisher Deep Silver have all but overshadowed the launch of the fantastic post-apocalyptic experience when they made the boldly abrupt decision to snub Steam and limit the game's PC release to the Epic Games Store . It's unknown how deeply this last-minute choice made from the top-down has affected Metro Exodus ' sales, but it generated enough online backlash among outraged PC players to drown out any positive news about the g
This guy shouldn't be considered an option outside of complete and utter desperation, though it is actually proven to be slightly more effective than nothing. But even then, you should swap it out as soon as possible with pretty much anything e
