The 25Gb download that I could only start at 9pm last night meant I would not be able to play it, so I just went to bed earlier and woke up at 5.25am, so I could play until 7am or so before I get to work. As someone who's played plenty of BR games between The Culling, PUBG, Fortnite BR, Blackout and then some, let's begin with the fact that this is easily the best and most polished BR at its launch. Of course it starts of better than Fortnite BR and PUBG, and definitely better than Blackout where half the shots wouldn't connect in the first days and there were tons of glitches, too. I played multiple matches and the game is pretty damn smooth, on the X I wouldn't say it was stable 60fps but there wasn't annoying or particularly noticeable drops, not even in firefights, though there were a couple weird scenarios like a guy killing me and only after that his shot was shown on screen, or another time where I was already behind cover but I still got shot at as if I wasn't - but hey, this kind of stuff can happen in regular 10-16 people multiplayer matches in FPS games, I can live with them in a 60 players mayhem.
I wasn't a fan of the idea of the game being squad-based only and with classes, but it ultimately makes a whole lot of sense. Most abilities are squad focused and are very useful as a whole, so teamwork feels like the focus rather than an afterthough like in other BR games, where besides reviving, smoke screens, etc. you can't really do a whole lot that changes how the match evolves. For now I'm mainly using recon as I get the hang of the game, because having a general idea of where your enemies are and being able to lure campers out is a fantastic skill that makes the game far more frantic and exciting to me. Of course, it all goes down to the team you get. In my first 3 matches, both my teammates died immediately, so I was left trying to do something alone, and I didn't really get far in those matches. On the other hand, on other 2 matches where my team survived with me, we won one and ended second in a 2v2 shootout, so teamplay is key here, and if there's cooperation and skills, winning or getting good results feels slightly easier than in most BRs, probably because of the polish and the lower playercount too (60v100).
What satisfied me the most, however, is just how good the game feels overall. First of all, it's very smooth, and while it doesn't have Titanfall 2's advanced movement system, with the sliding, the climbing, the verticality of the maps, the speed, certain abilities like the portals and the baits make for a very fast and fun traversal. Absolutely adore that you can ping items, that picking stuff up is fast and quite intuitive, and the map is varied enough to offer different battle scenarios too. So far I haven't found any particularly unique place bar a nice cave with a long slide in the end and an underground passage, whereas games like PUBG, Fortnite or Blackout have far more iconic locations imho, but maybe I'll learn to love certain areas.
The attention to details and general polish is also lovely. Being able to see the quality of the loot of different areas, fast and comfortable menus, quite short loading times, great presentation, tons of unlocks to get from the get-go. The monetization scheme seems to be a jack of all trades, as they seem to be trying to get the Overwatch money, the Fortnite money and the Siege money as well. We'll see how it works out on the long term, especially since you have to unlock classes too which could hamper the game's balance on the long-term. I have nothing against the cosmetic unlocks being paid, although they are rather expensive (just like in other BR games, to be fair), they obviously have to make money off this project, and maintaining a triple-A BR game with years of support and such is no cheap feat and requires a rather large team.
So yeah, this game is quite awesome so far, definitely enjoyed my time with it for now, and I can't wait for my lunch break so that I can play a couple rounds more, and then some more in the evening. I still adore the concept of BR games but PUBG's horrible performance on Xbox pushed me away, Fortnite still has horrible shooting thanks to the bloom and such, Blackout is fun but I prefer COD for its multiplayer, Realm Royale is interesting but not quite my cup of tea, The Culling has been reverted to years ago so it's nothing new at this point... Apex Legends, despite having a generic as fuck name (I expect people to refer to it as Apex in the future), is a very polished, rather fresh and totally exciting BR game that has my attention as of now, and has more than enough going for it to be a hit - for me, anyway.