They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and though Fortnite has certainly borrowed a number of gameplay elements from the so-hot-right-now Apex Legends (see: the ping system), the latter is seriously starting to stake its claim for the pixelated throne. And fast.
In fact, according to a recent report published just the other week, Apex Legends‘ growth rate is currently four times faster than that of Fortnite. After only 8 hours, it brought in a staggering 1 million players, and those numbers have only been going up ever since – so much so, in fact, that Apex hit 50 million strong after four weeks.
To put those figures into perspective, it took Fortnite a full 16 weeks to hit 45 million. This extraordinary growth can also be seen on the PS4 charts for February, where Apex once again climbed ahead of its competitor to become the top downloaded free-to-play title for last month. As for non free-to-play games, the top honor went to Anthem, which isn’t too surprising given that like Apex, it too launched in February with a tremendous amount of hype surrounding it.
PS4:
Anthem
Jump Force
Grand Theft Auto V
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Kingdom Hearts III
Far Cry 5
NBA 2K19
Far Cry New Dawn
FIFA 19
Red Dead Redemption 2PlayStation VR:
Beat Saber
Superhot VR
Job Simulator
Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality
PlayStation VR Worlds
Creed: Rise to Glory
Astro Bot Rescue Mission
Borderlands 2 VR
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
FarpointFree-to-Play Games:
Apex Legends
Realm Royale
Fortnite
Warface
H1Z1: Battle Royale
Brawlhalla
Switchblade
Paladins
Warface
DC Universe Online
While it’s great to see Apex finding so much success, it remains to be seen if it can continue to carry on the momentum. After all, the onus is on Respawn now to rustle up a steady stream of content so that the game has enough support to last far into the future.
For the time being, though, the promise of post-launch support for Apex Legends has been pretty strong, indicating that the developer fully intends to commit to the road ahead. Speaking of which, you can expect the first season of content to kick off at some point this month, and as soon as we get an exact date for when it’ll begin, we’ll be sure to let you know.