Respawn's Apex Legends has recorded a new all-time peak player count on Steam. The new stat comes less than a day after Apex Legends launched Season 16, a sign that the many fans may have found the battle royale's new slew of changes more than welcoming.
It's been an interesting few months for the Apex Legends franchise. Recently, Respawn announced that it was shutting down the mobile version of Apex Legends along with an unannounced single-player title that was rumored to have featured characters from both Apex Legends and Titanfall. Though not ideal news for fans, the company went on to share details about what to expect from Apex Legends in the upcoming season, which appears to be the prime focus for Respawn. Now, the game's player numbers suggest that many fans may be responding positively to this new direction.
According to SteamDB, Apex Legends has reached a new all-time peak player count on Steam following the launch of its new season, Revelry. At the time of writing, this number sits at 610,433 which is a nearly 20% jump from its previous peak player count of 510,000. It's interesting to note that the battle royale set this record after its player count dipped in the past few months and Respawn shipped Apex Legends Season 16 without a new legend for the first time.
Even though the new season didn't feature a new character, the studio added some significant quality-of-life changes to the game around some of its characters and gameplay features. More notably, Respawn got rid of Arenas and introduced Team Deathmatch along with a new Playlist feature. While it remains to be seen how these changes will sustain the user base in the long term, the player count on Steam indicates that the company may be heading in the right direction. But that's not to say Season 16 has been perfect for Apex Legends. Despite the positive feedback over the Team Deathmatch announcement, many fans are divided on how the new mode works in the game. Respawn will likely look at making more changes to these additions.
Interestingly, these aren't the only changes in the works for Apex Legends. Previously, the developer announced that it was already working on a new matchmaking system for Apex Legends in place of its existing Skill Based Matchmaking (SBMM) mechanism. So while the company's recent cancelations and shutdowns may have been disappointing, fans will undoubtedly find news of Respawn's focus on optimizing Apex Legends encouraging.
Apex Legends is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: SteamDB