Apex Legends, the popular free-to-play battle royale from Respawn Entertainment and EA, is officially making its way to Steam. After a leak detailed new exclusive cosmetics, Steam has now made an official announcement. According to Steam, these new cosmetics are "a way of saying welcome to the Arena. Everybody loves a crossover episode!" Up until this announcement, the game was only accessible through the Origin store, as Respawn worked with EA to release this title. However, Steam has now announced that it will be launching Respawn's title in its store as well.
In order to celebrate this upcoming change, Steam partnered with its parent company, Valve, as well as Apex Legends to create some unique gun charms that reference beloved Valve franchises. Apex Legends is joining other EA games that have made the transition to Steam, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic. Although no specific reason has been revealed for this migration of EA games, many PC users aren't complaining about the change.
Apex Legends will be giving away the crossover gun-charms to players who log into the game via Steam, which means that console players will not have access to these charms. The three charms crossover two of Valve's best known franchises, Portal and Half Life, integrating certain aspects with Apex champions. For example, one of the charms details Octane, the high-speed daredevil, with a Headcrab, one of Half Life's common enemies. Although these Steam-specific charms will not be available to all players, Apex Legends is reportedly undergoing its "Summer of Plunder" deal, giving discounts on various in-game cosmetics for users to enjoy across all platforms.
The other charms from this historic event feature GLaDOS from Portal in her potato, as well as Wattson cuddling a Companion Cube. According to the announcement, fans will most likely have to wait until Fall 2020 before the Steam launch is live. At this moment, the game is wrapping up its season 5, with the next season leaked to bring in a new champion and map. Because the title would not likely transition from one platform to another mid-season, it is safe to assume that Steam will release Respawn Entertainment's battle royale in Season 7.
Although many fans are eagerly anticipating an earlier release, Steam has not revealed any extra information about the game launching earlier than autumn, so the promise of these new charms and the Summer of Plunder will have to hold players over until then. EA is transitioning 25+ games to Steam during this summer as part of their EA Access subscription, set to release later in the season. These launches are serving more as a partnership rather than a replacement, as fans will be able to play their favorite EA games "wherever you want to play." A closer look at some of these EA games may reveal some of the company's intentions, such as adding Mass Effect: Andromeda to Steam, alongside speculation of a remastered Mass Effect trilogy.
The devstream that accompanied this announcement included some interesting discussion about these new charms, including the excitement of the developers for this transition: "For something this momentous, we couldn’t give you something half-baked -- that’s why we partnered with Valve to design these Half-Life and Portal inspired gun charms!"
Apex Legends is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC (Origin Store), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with its Steam release coming later this fall.
Source: Steam