Apex Legends came out of nowhere and surprised fans of the genre. The game reached to 25 million players and had a peak of 2 million concurrent players in one week, according to EA blog post.
On the other hand, Fortnite was able to hit 10 million in two weeks. It’s very likely that Apex Legends got most of its player base mass from Fortnite.
Interestingly enough, after Apex Legends’ huge success, Epic Games announced the Overtime Event, in which players can get the next Battle Pass for free if they complete 13 special missions. In short, it looks like Fortnite is trying to get back the players it lost to Apex Legends.
Even with this event and new cosmetics, Twitch seems to prove that people still prefer to watch Apex Legends to Fortnite. But why exactly people don’t want to go back to Fortnite, why did so many people were instantly captivated by Apex Legends? Lots of Fortnite streamers seem to have switched to Apex like Ninja, Shroud, Dellor, DrDisrespect and more.
Here are the 10 reasons we think Apex Legends is better than Fortnite:
1. There is no building in Apex Legends, which is a good thing for most players
Fortnite came to the genre with its unique building system, but as time went on, it started to show some of its ugly sides. Not only turbo building can block even rain of bullets from a minigun, but a macro player can also easily trap an opponent in a box full of spikes. Moreover, build-offs can be really frustrating if you make one mistake in your building or editing can result in death. And running out of building materials in the middle of a fight also means death even if you have golden weapons and tons of ammo. Frustrating as it gets, but this isn’t even the entire story.
On the other hand, while Apex Legends doesn’t have a building system, it has a very fast and fluent movement system. Coupled with unique champion abilities, most people seem to NOT miss Fortnite’s embroiled building system once they play Apex.
2. There is no ADS bloom in Apex
ADS stands for Aim Down Sights. When you hold down your right click or left trigger, most shooter games will give you very high accuracy, but reduced mobility. In Apex’ ADS mode, you will not get any bloom on your shots, meaning your bullets will go dead center to your reticle, but there will be some recoil as you shoot.
In Fornite however, in ADS you will get recoil and reduced mobility AND tons of bloom for the majority of weapons. This frustrated many players and streamers live, countless times. And there is no way to reduce ADS bloom in Fortnite since there are no attachments of any kind. Only 3 of 29 weapons are semi-automatic guns with bloom-less ADS.
3. You have a third chance of getting back into action in Apex
When you get killed in DBNO ‘downed but not out’ state in Apex, your teammates can still get your banner from your loot crate, and revive you in a pre-designated area called a “respawn beacon”. A banner has to be picked up by a teammate in 90 seconds or you will be out for good.
In Fortnite, if you die in DBNO state, you’re done with that match. Back to lobby with you!
Apex Legends
4. There are champions with tons of customization options in Apex
However, there are no classes or heroes or anything of that sort in Fortnite.
5. Apex has a very versatile ping system
With its context-aware smart ping system, you don't even have to use a microphone. And not only that, every ping has voice-overs for each champion. You can make callouts about where enemies are, or if there is is a loot chest or a weapon on the ground. You can open your inventory and ping the things you need like ammo, armor or attachments. And all this is bound to a single button!
There is no ping system nor voice-overs for anything in Fortnite, and after playing Apex Legends, you might feel the need and absence of such tool really hard.
6. Apex has a smart inventory and loot system
If you have a better attachment, the game makes you hold down the “use” button to pick that item up, which makes it very easy to loot and quickly upgrade your gear. Also, every attachment you pick up gets attached to a weapon. It can be greatly effective if you use different kinds of weapons like one sniper rifle and one SMG.
Fortnite doesn’t have any of these features.
7. Apex has custom voiced taunts, opening and PotG animations just like Overwatch.
To be fair, Fortnite has lots of cool dance animations but that’s about it.
Conclusion
Fortnite has it’s moments and is a very good game, at least for a time. But battle royale genre is evolving really quickly and Apex Legends seem to have taken the lead. Let’s not forget that everyone has a different taste for games, while some players enjoy the slow and realistic pace of PuBG, others like the fast building face-offs in Fortnite. Apex seems to fill the gap for Overwatch players who like battle royale games, and also people who would like to play Call of Duty Black Ops 4 Blackout mode, but don’t want to pay $40 for it. We’re sure Fortnite will sustain its huge player base for years to come, but if it wants to lead the genre, it has to evolve as well.
