MeinMMO author Jürgen Horn enjoys playing battle royale and usually has no problem when he loses. Except when it happens due to acute stupidity in handling wooden planks, which ruined the perfect round in Apex Legends.
I love playing battle royale games and the fast-paced shooter Apex Legends has particularly captured my interest. The game offers the perfect mix of speed, gunplay, hero abilities, useful gameplay features and story.
That’s why I keep returning to Apex after long absences and play it intensely every evening for a few weeks. But one evening taught me that in such cases, maybe it would be a good idea to play the tutorial again…
This is how it all began!
How did the round start? Since none of my friends play battle royale games, I was as usual with a random group. I played as the scout Bloodhound (For the Allfather!), and my teammates were playing Wattson and Wraith.
I was the jumpmaster and chose the newly added surveillance post from Crypto on the map King’s Canyon, introduced in Season 5. Because I love when the game starts with a bang and you can collect early kills and good loot.
Moreover, at the listening post, you can reveal all enemies on the map for a short time, which gives a decisive advantage in the following phase of the game.
The first victory at the outpost: After landing, things start off strong, and since we’re playing the active game mode “Armed and Dangerous,” we already receive armor and a Mozambique pistol at the beginning.
I quickly trade that useless piece of junk for a powerful Charge Rifle and a hefty Mastiff shotgun (there are only shotguns and snipers in this mode), and we quickly rack up some kills. We snatched the weapons from our opponents, who are practically running unarmed – the Mozambique doesn’t really count as a “weapon” in Apex – into our fire and perish pitifully!
Such a successful start makes you eager for more!
Advantage through knowledge: After our first victory, activating the listening post lets us know that the enemies are already hanging out in the north by the ruins of the Repulsor. But they don’t know that we know.
So we quickly run up, and thanks to my Bloodhound scouting, I can quickly spot them and catch them off guard while looting. Victory number 2 on our account! We’re on a roll!
I can only emphasize how great the fast gameplay of Apex feels with Bloodhound. Especially the feature that clearly shows you the enemies’ tracks and how fresh they are gives you the ultimate hunter feeling.
The victory is within reach
This is how the mid-game went: Our streak of success continues well into the mid-game. Methodically, we explore the map and always follow the path of the safe zone. Because, like in every battle royale, the play area shrinks over time in Apex. Those who are too slow get grilled by the ever-deadly death zone via the energy field.
In a really wild advance, we can hold our own even on the further level. Here again, I notice how great Bloodhound plays. His ultimate allows him to dash around quickly and see all the enemies. You really feel like the unstoppable hunter, whose enemies serve as prey!
In that moment, I forgot everything that was happening around me and was totally absorbed in this power fantasy of being a mighty hunter in Apex Legends.
Wattson’s Death Fortress: Time passes, and we are really unreasonably lucky. Because two safe zones are located on a well-fortified outpost, which is also on a mountain. To remind you: the game mode contains only snipers and shotguns.
If the opponent wants to attack us, he has to come up the mountain over open ground, getting no cover while we harvest bloody kills with our now high-powered snipers.
Here I particularly like the Charge Rifle because it hits comfortably via hitscan and you don’t have to consider bullet drop. This drop over distance is really severe in Apex! Should an enemy manage to reach our fortress, our Wattson has a nasty surprise ready.
Because the entire area is sealed off with her electric fences, and the helpful engineer has set up her capacitor towers everywhere. They protect against grenades and restore shields.
This way we survive the occasionally successful enemy fire without problems. In sniper duels and individual close encounters – sometimes someone manages to reach the fence – we finish off the rest. Here, teammate Wraith comes into play, who occasionally appears invisibly behind the attackers or changes position unseen. Have I mentioned that I really have an awesome random team?
In the end, only one enemy team is left, and things look really good for us! This could really work!
The terrible revenge of the wooden plank!
This is how the calamity began: There is only one enemy team left, but they do not give us the courtesy of daring to storm our mighty Wattson’s Death Fortress. Rather, the cheeky rascals take cover on the neighboring, even higher mountain.
Our luck has also abandoned us, because after the safe zone had been with us multiple times, it unfortunately shifts in the final phase of the game exactly to the mountain where our last opponents are throwing a camping party.
So we have to go. But luckily there’s a useful zip line stretched to the neighboring mountain. Just one last decisive advance, and then victory will be ours! It has to work!
Fate is a bastard: There is a superstitious belief among pessimistic people that for every happiness enjoyed, fate delivers a corresponding dose of misfortune as compensation. The better it goes, the harder the slap from fate at the end.
So to speak, a sadistic karmic rubber band smacks you in the face with full force when things are going too well. I don’t actually believe in such nonsense, but it seemed to be the truth here.
Damn it, why can’t I get up here: As if guided by an invisible troll hand, I fall off the pedestal at the end of the zip line. I land at the foot of the mountain while my buddies keep rushing ahead.
“Damn,” I think. “It won’t work with just two of us; we have to attack as a team!” Luckily, there’s a practical wooden plank layout at the edge of the platform. You can climb up that in Apex Legends; I learned that from previous sessions months ago.
So I jump up and press the jump button again to get up. Damn, it doesn’t work; my character slides back down.
“Damn it, how did you climb up again?” races through my mind. Maybe you have to press the use button instead? That doesn’t work either. Again, I slide down the slope like a total wooden idiot.
My mighty hunter Bloodhound hops around on the mountain like a total klutz, and my adrenaline-flooded brain can’t figure out how to get up there.
My teammates notice this and want to see what’s going on. Unfortunately, they also jump down and search for the problem. The problem is that I’m too stupid to climb! My comrades aren’t, though; they keep climbing back up, and I just can’t get it!
This damn wooden plank refuses to serve as climbing aid for me! And now the big calamity comes, because as I desperately hop around, the enemies shoot at us, and even if one of us got up there, they would be a target!
The ignoble end: But the decision of whether we should boldly throw ourselves into the hail of bullets and at least find an honorable death in the eyes of the Allfather is taken from us. Because the death zone has arrived and rolls over us like an unforgiving avalanche of 1.21 cruel gigawatts! In seconds, we burn up along with our ambitious plans for a great battle royale victory in the energy field of the death zone.
What a disappointment! After the constant adrenaline high of the past 30 minutes, this abrupt end feels just like a nasty kick in the metaphorical balls! Dumbfounded, I sit in front of the screen while the game crowns the chuckling champions of the remaining team! They didn’t do anything except watch us burn up! It’s just not right!
Next time I jump back into Apex Legends after a break, I’ll take a look at the tutorial again. Only when you know how to climb can you become a merciless, ruthless hunter. I learned that that night. Damn.
Conclusion – Learn the basics!
I’m more of a casual gamer and usually have no problem when a round goes wrong despite initial successes. The opponent was just better. But when you die due to sheer stupidity because you forgot that in Apex Legends you climb not by simply pressing but holding the jump button, it really annoyed me!
That’s why I’ve made it a point to always take the time to relearn the basics of a game and even play the tutorial again before jumping back in after a long absence. I never want to experience such a disgrace as with the wooden plank again!
Jürgen Horn
Editor at Mein-MMO
If you want to read a more positive experience from me: Here’s an article where I describe the perfect Apex Legends run.
