In Apex Legends Season 9 is finally online. At the same time, the game is experiencing a real surge on Steam. This is partly due to the new game mode. MeinMMO author Jürgen Horn has played the new features and tells you why you should definitely try the fast-paced battle royale game.
Apex Legends is buzzing on Steam: Since its Steam launch in November 2020, the battle royale shooter Apex Legends has received consistently positive reviews on Steam. Overall, the game has a 91% positive rating, and at the start of Season 9 on May 4, 2021, these ratings rose significantly with over 5,000 new top ratings.
Additionally, there are tons of new players on Steam, driving the player count to unprecedented heights. Over 10,000 new players on average joined, and the highest recorded number – only on Steam! – was over 330,000 simultaneous active players in recent days!
This huge hype surprised even me as a die-hard Apex Legends fan from the very beginning. But after a short first round in the game, I quickly realized why the fast-paced battle royale shooter from Respawn Entertainment is currently so popular.
Season 9 brings the biggest update of Apex Legends so far
Here’s what’s new: Apex Legends has gotten better and more extensive with each season, and at least one new playable legend has always been included. But for Season 9, there is so much more:
- The new hero Valkyrie introduces a completely new gameplay concept with her flying ability
- There is no new map, but a significant rework of the already cool map Olympus
- There is a new weapon that is not just another rifle but a high-tech bow with unique gameplay
- Extensive balance changes, especially for the legend Lifeline
- For the first time, a completely new game mode outside of battle royale has been introduced – 3vs3 arenas!
This is much more than the previous season packages, which each introduced a new legend and either a new weapon or map. Here, you get almost everything you could imagine in a single season! This is a true milestone in the development of Apex Legends. The curiosity about this content already justifies the increase in players on Steam and the other platforms.
Moreover, the new content is really good as I experienced in the first play session myself.
How the new 3vs3 arena plays
My biggest highlight of Season 9 is the new game mode of the 3vs3 arena. As the name suggests, you don’t play a battle royale with dozens of opponents here, but two squads face off against each other. The maps are selected areas from the three known maps, all of which are quite small but big enough to allow room for tactical maneuvers.
This is how fast it plays: As in battle royale, the play area here also gets smaller, turning the battles from tactical sniper duels at the beginning into brutal close combat at the end of the round. However, rounds often end even before the middle of the playtime since there are no respawns, and if fallen teammates are not quickly revived, they are lost for the rest of the round.
Thus, the 3vs3 arenas always feel like the final round in a regular Apex battle royale round when only two well-equipped squads remain and are giving it their all in a manageable terrain.
Only action, no downtime: This way, Apex Legends brings a lot of speed into the game and eliminates a problem that has always bothered me about battle royale: the tedious downtime in the mid-game when sometimes you roam around for minutes without finding any opponents and just searching for loot.
In the arena, action is guaranteed after one minute, and it gets going right away. You hardly need to collect loot, as you acquire weapons and protective gear at the beginning of the game using resources collected in the round or earned through good gameplay.
Ideal for pros and newbies: This puts the focus on the fights, which are particularly fierce and fast-paced here. And if you go down, the round is quickly over anyway, and you can jump right back into the game without first having to painstakingly find another lobby, drop from the map, and then possibly spend 15 minutes exploring the landscape without any enemy contact.
Players who, like me, want immediate action, or want to test various weapons and tactics under combat conditions are in the right place in this new mode. And those who just want to try the gunplay and gameplay of Apex Legends as newcomers should definitely head to the arena first.
A detailed analysis of the new arena in Season 9 has been written here by my colleague Marylin Marx from GameStar.
What I like about the new hero Valkyrie
Is the new legend worth it? New legends have been a must since the first season of Apex Legends, and sometimes they are more or less useful. With the current addition Valkyrie, however, the developers seem to have found a good candidate again.
With her jetpack, Valkyrie brings even more verticality into the game. Legends that could elevate themselves have always been useful, including Octane with his jump pads and Horizon with her gravity field. But so far, no one could truly fly.
This is what Valkyrie can do: The new character, on the other hand, can truly elevate herself into the air at any time. While she cannot shoot during this, she can scout opponents and access unreachable locations to launch deadly sniper attacks from there. Additionally, she has a really nasty rocket attack that, while it doesn’t do much damage, puts opponents under considerable stress and confusion.
This is why the ultimate is so good: As an ultimate, she can briefly shoot the whole team into the sky and let them jump off again from there. As someone who has forgotten the death zone numerous times while looting and then burned in the energy field, I cannot praise this ability highly enough. Players with Valkyrie on their team can take their time when looting and still escape the death zone.
Alternatively, the second air drop is also perfect for bypassing an enemy position from the air and unexpectedly attacking the enemy from the side.
The new heroine is therefore immensely useful and also has some cool skins and animations. That’s how it should be!
Everything that’s still great about Season 9
How Battle Royale changes: So far, I have primarily played the new arena, but I also really like the revamped map Olympus. An unknown spaceship is docked there, which is infested with strange alien plants. Therefore, the nasty growth is now spreading across the map and brings new pathways and altered locations.
In addition, you can unlock new secret rooms on the spaceship by collecting key cards beforehand. Overall, a solid change to my favorite map.
This is what’s up with the new bow: I almost forgot about the new weapon behind all these cool innovations. The Bocek Bow is a high-tech bow that shoots its own type of ammunition. It has the same reload speed every time, and you can even collect the arrows again.
The bow can be shot in either a light or fully drawn state. In the first mode, it shoots quite rapidly but does little damage. When fully drawn, it becomes a sort of sniper weapon for medium distances and really delivers in headshots.
Conclusion – If you’re not playing Apex Legends now, you’re missing out!
I found Apex Legends great even when it had no seasons and only one map. With almost every update, the game has become better overall. But with Season 9, the game is giving me both Christmas and Easter at once and bringing a wealth of cool new features that could have sufficed for three seasons. Therefore, I completely understand why so many of you – among others on Steam – are playing the game and rating it highly.
I can hardly wait until work is over so I can play a few rounds in the arena or take longer strolls in battle royale.
Only the annoying server issues that have been regularly occurring since the launch of Season 9 and prevent me from logging in spoil the gaming fun. But I have full confidence in the developers that they will fix this promptly. See you tonight in the arena!
Jürgen Horn
Editor at MeinMMO
