'Apex Legends' Mix-Up Caused Spike in Sales for VR Game 'Apex Construct'

There's a virtual reality game on Steam called Apex Construct that's not related to Apex Legends, but it's benefitted from the battle royale game regardless after shoppers mistakenly thought it was Respawn Entertainment's game.

It's not uncommon for new games to have similar titles or concepts found in huge sensations like Fortnite as studios try to cash in on crazes, many of those knock-offs getting poor reviews once people figure out what's going on. However, in Apex Constructs' case, the virtual reality game was around long before Apex Legends was released and just happens to be benefitting from Respawn Entertainment's new battle royale game. Released in March 2018, the game that's found on Steam isn't much like Apex Legends at all except for the fact that it involves combat and some futuristic elements. But despite their differences, sharing parts of the same name and a logo which looks similar enough to possibly cause some confusion has resulted in Apex Constructs getting quite a bit of attention and sales lately.

Andreas Juliusson, communications manager at Fast Travel Games, the creators of Apex Constructs, posted about the mix-up on Reddit to share the story of how well the game has done since the release of Apex Legends. Despite Apex Legends not even being available on Steam and the fact that it's a free-to-play game, people are still buying Apex Constructs thinking that it's the new battle royale title. Juliusson said Apex Constructs sales have been made in one week in China than all of 2018, though the communications manager acknowledged that many of these purchases will probably be refunded.

"Since the launch of Apex Legends on Feb 4, visits to our store page on Steam has increased with over 4000% - and Legends isn't even available on Steam at all, it's an EA Origin exclusive!" Juliusson said. "What makes it even weirder is that we sold more units of Apex Construct in China the last seven days than during ALL of 2018 - apparently people are prepared to buy what they think is Apex Legends for $29.99, even though it's a free-to-play title ... Most likely these units will be refunded, but our books look pretty good at the moment."

The only downside to those purchases aside from the fact that they might be refunded is that the game's now received many negative reviews from Chinese users who feel as though they'd been scammed, Juliusson said.

"Fortunately the Steam Community team is looking into this right now," Juliusson added. "Somewhere, there are massive misunderstandings going on."

Apex Legends is now out on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC platforms, and you can check out Apex Construct through its Steam page or through the trailer above.