New seasons of Apex Legends all the time carry with them new plot developments and narrative threads to tug at. On this season, as an example, a brand new haute couture-themed occasion has simply gone dwell, and to advertise the sport’s newest premium cosmetics, Respawn has posted a set of 4 in-universe journal covers, every that includes a unique playable Legend of their new high-fashion digs. However a better look reveals that every journal additionally comprises some fairly wild articles with the potential to have equally wild results on the sport’s storyline.
As soon as upon a time, I seemed ahead to those lore drops, as a result of they all the time led to one thing good. However currently, they simply make me unhappy. The narrative payoff isn’t there the best way it was once, in order a lot as I wish to take these little lore tidbits severely and get excited to see them explored through the lead-up to Season 26 (or throughout Season 26 itself), I simply don’t get pleasure from Apex Legends lore drops the best way I used to. Primarily as a result of currently, we get fewer lore drops, they usually aren’t executed with practically as a lot mindblowingly cool finesse as they as soon as had been.
Let me take you again to the golden age of Apex Legends lore. It’s late January 2020. The world hasn’t but fallen aside, and the present concern of the Apex Legends lorehounds on the /r/ApexLore subreddit is the id of the subsequent Legend to affix the Apex Video games. In accordance with Respawn — which has created an official biography web page on its web site itemizing the brand new Legend’s in-game skills, as is commonplace for all new Legend debuts — the subsequent Legend might be James “the Forge” McCormick, an award-winning fighter with an ego the scale of the large steel gauntlet he wears in fight.
Though Respawn devs have left traces of Forge’s impending arrival within the sport’s recordsdata (which the studio is aware of the sport’s lorehunters will promptly datamine the hell out of in seek for solutions), followers nonetheless have their doubts. One thing appears off.
Then, on January twenty seventh, the most recent episode of Tales From The Outlands (the once-active Apex webseries) airs. Tales From The Outlands is often up to date with a brand new episode every season, typically giving perception into newly added Legends, different occasions specializing in Legends who’ve been there since day one.
This specific episode of Tales From The Outlands options Season 4’s debut Legend, the aforementioned Forge, being interviewed by an Outlands TV journalist. However moments into the interview, this occurs:
That is how Respawn introduced {that a} new Legend was arriving. It will not be Forge. No, Forge’s killer — a lethal robotic murderer named Revenant — could be taking his place. Even for followers who noticed it coming, the plot twist was thrilling, stunning, and — at the very least to me — fascinating.
Three days later, the Season 4 launch trailer dropped, revealing Revenant’s equally fascinating backstory, whereas additionally priming the viewers for the arrival of the subsequent Legend: Loba, a lady who was understandably searching for revenge for the homicide of her dad and mom (as seen within the aforementioned trailer).
By the point Loba confirmed up as a playable Legend in Season 5, gamers had been handled to the sport’s magnum opus: “The Damaged Ghost.” “The Damaged Ghost” questline was up to date repeatedly all through the season and allowed gamers to staff up with their mates to finish challenges and, in the end, put collectively a well-recognized faceplate: Titanfall 2 fan-favorite badass, Ash.
Sadly, Apex Legends gamers would by no means see one other jaw-dropping bait-and-switch like Forge’s homicide and Revenant’s arrival, nor would one other playable questline like “The Damaged Ghost” ever make one other look within the sport.
However all wasn’t misplaced. “The Damaged Ghost” questline was changed by seasonal in-game radio performs that had been totally voiced, if not totally animated. Ash herself would later be a part of the Apex Video games as a playable Legend in Season 11, and Valkyrie — the daughter of one other Titanfall 2 antagonist, Viper — would be a part of the video games in Season 9. She arrived alongside a brand new, very compelling seasonal plotline that featured a lethal alien virus and targeted on Valkyrie’s precarious place in a love triangle with Bangalore and Loba (one other lore drop Apex lorehunters went wild for). Though Respawn would go on to experiment with a unique quest format known as Apex Chronicles, it was short-lived and underwhelming within the wake of The Damaged Ghost’s thrilling plotline.
Apex’s writers use a technique known as “breadcrumbing”: leaving little hints each in-game and on social media for eagle-eyed gamers to stumble throughout, permitting them to piece collectively a small a part of Apex’s sprawling narrative. However regardless of the breadcrumbs featured within the latest social media submit exhibiting the Legends on journal covers surrounded by headlines with critical lore implications, I simply don’t really feel the identical pleasure I as soon as did, as a result of the lore drops don’t really repay the best way they used to.
Respawn hasn’t uploaded an episode of Tales From The Outlands since Conduit arrived in 2023, and has considerably lower down on the variety of trailers it releases every season. For Season 25: Prodigy (which is at present in progress), it launched two trailers: the “Prodigy Anthem” trailer (which gave gamers a surface-level introduction to the sport’s newest Legend, Sparrow,) and a seasonal gameplay trailer. No Tales From The Outlands trailer, no hilarious launch trailer that lets us see the Legends work together, no narrative payoff.
Up till pretty just lately, Apex’s season launches meant gamers would get a brand new episode of Tales From The Outlands (with a second episode typically dropping mid-season), a lore-packed launch trailer, a great deal of pre-season Easter Eggs and teasers, a battle go trailer, and presumably extra, just like the Revenant-focused Kill Code animated webseries Respawn launched over the course of 2023.
Clearly, the studio has confronted obstacles like layoffs, sport cancellations (together with an in-production Apex Legends spin-off), and the departure of key workers, like lead animator Moy Parra and author Manny Hagopian. After failing to satisfy monetization targets final yr, due partly to poor participant reception of the sport’s new twin battle go system, Apex Legends is reportedly present process “giant systematic adjustments.”
I simply want these adjustments didn’t have to return at the price of the sport’s story, which for some time there, had myself and loads of others perched on the sting of our seats over issues just like the authorized identify of an unidentified rat. The sport’s newest breadcrumbs have attention-grabbing implications — Loba insists the love triangle between her, Bangalore, and Valkyrie is over; a Hammond Robotics whistleblower is giving a tell-all interview — however sadly, I not have a motive to consider these breadcrumbs will lead me wherever practically as thrilling as they as soon as did.
Apex’s story remains to be going, I simply miss the times when it felt like that story was going someplace attention-grabbing.
