After Apex Legends’ lackluster Switch release, many may have believed it would stick to its guns: PC and consoles. But an all-new Apex Legends game, built from the ground up for mobile, is releasing worldwide today, May 17. Apex Legends Mobile features a limited cast of characters for now, but it will likely introduce old ones alongside its exclusive game modes and characters too.
In fact, for launch, a new face is joining the Apex Legends Mobile roster: Fade. Fade can be described as a more offensive version of Wraith, who gets a speed boost after sliding, can flashback in the void, and can cast everyone into the void (which has a serious number of potential competitive plays). However, Fade’s role as an offensive legend may be concerning for some fans.
Apex Legends’ Overstuffed Offensive Roster
As it stands, there are 21 characters in Apex Legends (as opposed to the 10 characters in Apex Legends Mobile). These characters are divided into four classes, as seen below:
Offensive: Ash, Bangalore, Fuse, Horizon, Mad Maggie, Mirage, Octane, Revenant, Valkyrie, Wraith
Defensive: Caustic, Gibraltar, Newcastle, Rampart, Wattson,
Support: Lifeline, Loba
Recon: Bloodhound, Crypto, Pathfinder, Seer
Just looking at this list of Apex Legends characters, there’s a pretty obvious preference for offensive, assault-based legends. There are 10 offensive legends, making up essentially half the roster, to the 5 defensive legends, 2 support legends, and 4 recon legends. Many have called for new support characters for quite some time, as Lifeline is a launch legend and Loba was all the way back in season 5.
It’s worth noting that the recent, massive Apex Legends leak showed a ton of Defensive, Support, and Recon characters in the works, but the rate at which they release will likely take another year, at least, to perhaps even this out.
Apex Legends Mobile Roster Can Avoid These Offensive Character Overload
With that in mind, it’s worth looking at Apex Legends Mobile character roster:
Offensive: Bangalore, Mirage, Octane, Wraith, Fade
Defensive: Caustic, Gibraltar
Support: Lifeline
Recon: Pathfinder, Bloodhound
There is a similar occurrence here, where the offensive legends are half of the launch roster, with two defensive legends, one support legend, and one recon legend filling it out. Now, given the meta of Apex Legends, more assault characters than other classes may make sense; at the same time, half the characters being offensive is a bit much.
Apex Legends Mobile should focus on filling out its Defensive, Support, and Recon characters equally from here, alongside its offensive legend releases. There are plenty of these characters to choose from, and exclusive Apex Legends characters should focus on support, as well as non-offensive classes. It’ll be interesting to see how future exclusive characters are received, but while some base game fans may not be happy with them, a better balanced Apex Legends Mobile is good for its future.
Apex Legends Mobile is available now on Android and iOS devices.