Apex Legends Breaks Record During Season 14 Launch
Apex Legends kicked off its newest season just this week and already has something to boast about. Respawn Entertainment's battle royale game just broke its record of peak concurrent players on Steam alongside the launch of Season 14. A total of 510,286 players popped into Apex Legends at one point on Tuesday to see what all the fuss was about, and while that number has naturally dropped since then, it's evident there's a lot of interest in the current season.
The Steam stats for Apex Legends were shared by the helpful Steam Charts service which currently lists that lofty player count as both the 24-hour peak and the all-time peak for the game. The peak before that as far as the Steam numbers are concerned seems to be 411,183 players reached on April 25th, the same day when the new trailer for Season 13 dropped. Whatever was going on in-game at that time to warrant this sort of peak, it's been beaten now.
Perhaps it was the enticing patch notes for Season 14 that were full of buffs for different champions like Mad Maggie and Newcastle that drew players back in, or perhaps it was the new champion herself: Vantage. This latest Legend to join the Apex Games comes with a winged friend, some mobility, and superior snipes to pick enemies apart from afar with all of the character's abilities detailed below for those who hadn't seen them yet:
Passive: Spotter's Lens
- Aim down sights to scout with your eyepiece (unarmed or with mid- to long-range scopes) and use a bullet drop indicator to see where your shots will land.
Tactical: Echo Location
- Position your winged companion Echo and then Launch towards him. Must have line of sight to Echo for Launch.
Ultimate: Sniper's Mark
- Use your custom sniper rifle to mark enemy targets which applies a damage bonus for you and your team.
Whatever the reason was for this peak, it's not too shabby for a game that's been out long enough to progress through 14 seasons. It naturally wasn't on Steam right away, but many players followed it there from EA's launcher after it became available on the platform, so the new peak shows that those players are clearly still coming back for the new content.