When it comes to free-to-play battle royale shooters, Apex Legends is among the most prolific. Since its release in 2019, the game has amassed a huge community, boasting 13 million active weekly players when the game's 9th season went into full swing earlier this year. With such a huge player base, it makes sense that the game would be raking in plenty of cash for Respawn Entertainment and EA despite its free-to-play. Cool, limited-time skins are mainly what players spend money on in-game, so it's curious why Apex Legends hasn't done any media crossovers in the form of new character skins.
As it currently stands, Fortnite is filled to the brim with multimedia crossovers. Tie-ins for the game include comic books, movies, other video game properties, and even real celebrities like the recently added Ariana Grande skin. Crossovers have kept Fortnite alive for years, and it feels like Apex Legends is long overdue some crossovers of its own. It probably wouldn't make much sense to go full Ariana Grande right off the bat based on the game's more serious tone, but bringing some other media properties to the mix with limited event skins might do Apex some good.
Keeping the Apex Lore in Tact
Before even getting into the seemingly limitless possibilities of Apex crossovers, it's important to make one thing clear: Apex Legends has a lot of lore that's been told through animated shorts, comic books, tie-ins with Titanfall 2, and through limited-time events that usually correspond with new seasonal updates. It seems like Respawn Entertainment has done a lot to maintain that lore and tell the story surrounding the game in an interesting way, so it doesn't make sense for the game to include crossovers in the exact same way that Fortnite does.
Certain events in Fortnite bring crossover characters into the game's canon, like with the addition of Lara Croft and the Avengers in past seasons. While that works for Fortnite and the tone that the game is going for, adding additional characters to the Apex Legends canon would have some serious repercussions and likely distract from a lot of the interesting world-building that's already been done. Apex Legends crossovers would have to come in the form of non-canonical purchasable Legend and gun skins as well as weapon charms. A perfect example of this is the Mass Effect weapon charms that all players received earlier this year in celebration of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition: they weren't distracting, served as nice rewards for fans of the Mass Effect series, and the crossover was appropriate based on the similar tones of both games.
The Possibilities of New Featured Apex Skins
While weapon charms certainly are cool, the real desired crossover items are limited-time Legend skins. Fans of Apex Legends love when new skins are available for their favorite Legends, so doing crossovers with iconic media properties that put new skins in the digital storefront would likely go over pretty well. As mentioned above, the important thing to consider is what IPs would mesh well with Apex in terms of tone and visual style. Not everything needs to follow the sci-fi aesthetic that Apex has necessarily, but each additional crossover skin should feel natural in the world of Apex Legends.
In terms of video game crossovers with Apex, there are some easy picks for what would fit well. Halo could bring some cool skins for Legends like Bangalore, Revenant, and Octane, as they could don Spartan, UNSC, or Covenant-inspired armor in place of their usual outfits. The recently announced Dead Space reboot could give Caustic, Bloodhound, and Rampart the classic R.I.G. suits with modifications to each characters' specifications. Although it already received a small crossover in the form of the previously mentioned weapon charms, Mass Effect feels like the perfect pair with Apex. Putting Horizon and Mirage in variants of the N7 armor just seems right, and giving Pathfinder a skin inspired by Legion would be equally fitting.
Games aren't the only properties, however, that would mesh well with everything that Apex Legends has going for it. Star Wars feels like an obvious choice but could produce a really cool Ahsoka Tano skin for Loba as well as storm/clone trooper-inspired skins for the rest of the Legends. A Jurassic Park crossover skin could see the newest Legend, Seer, trade his hat for one similar to Alan Grant's, while Wattson could wear something similar to Ellie Sattler since the two have similar hair. The Mad Max series feels appropriate as well, with Fuse's Aussie quips often breaking the silence while looting. He could strap some leather and metal to himself to survive the wasteland along with Valkyrie and Lifeline. The new Matrix film that's scheduled to hit theaters next year seems like it could produce great trench coat outfits for Crypto, Gibraltar, and Wraith.
Bringing New Players to Apex Legends
Apex Legends has a huge, international player base that doesn't necessarily need additional incentives to stick around. The game is constantly undergoing changes in addition to major seasonal updates that happen every few months, so those already devoted to the game don't need much convincing to stay with it. New players, however, may need something to bring them over the edge so that they dive into the game. At this point, there are a lot of Legends to keep track of, making the thought of getting into the game now a little bit daunting.
If Respawn can work out some crossovers with big media franchises, Apex Legends might become far more enticing to those who aren't already invested. Fortnite seems to draw new people into the game with each subsequent crossover, and it might do Apex well to learn from Epic Games' success. As detailed above, Apex's crossovers should not be anything drastic. However, including nods and references to other large franchises with different Legends might bring a whole new audience to the game.
Apex Legends is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.