For most Battle Royale games, the most important element is the gameplay, which typically results in the narrative or character stories being pushed off to the side. While some games like Fortnite have slowly begun to focus a bit more on the narrative side of the experience, Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends seemed to take pride in its setting and characters right on day one.
While the gameplay retains the core mechanics of a traditional battle royale, Apex Legends features a diverse roster of characters, each armed with special abilities and moves. The other element to this experience is that it was designed to be set inside of the Titanfall universe, meaning players will see not only references to the fan favorite first person shooter series, but characters as well. Villains like Ash and Kuben Blisk have already made their appearances while plenty of Titanfall weapons have made the jump into Apex Legends as well.
To help this world building effort, Respawn Entertainment has created a video series known as Stories from the Outlands. Each video details an origin story for one of the Apex Legends characters, giving fans a little more insight into who they are and how they got to where they are. Here is every story that Respawn has released so far.
A Father's Letter
The very first story was centered on Natalie "Wattson" Paquette in advance of her arrival into the game in Season 2. The short film opens with Wattson's father narrating a letter he wrote to her following a major breakthrough of a recent experiment. He heaps fatherly praise on his daughter who was a major catalyst for discovering a solution to their latest project.
The project in question was in actuality the containment field for the Apex Games. Unfortunately, her father would not live to see the project revealed to the world, leaving Wattson alone and at her lowest moment. A group of competitors came to her and assured her that she's always be welcomed at the games, eventually opting to fight alongside her friends.
Voidwalker
Instead of highlighting an upcoming character, the next short film told the tale of the fan favorite character Wraith and her complicated history. As the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation withdrew from the Outlands towards the end of the Frontier War, many of the old and now abandoned facilities retained many of their old secrets. Determined to uncover her true identity, Wraith ventured into these locations to hack into the IMC database for an individual named Amer Signh. While she comes across images, files, and the profile for Signh, she learns that the lead scientist is deceased.
However, the facility itself is guarded and soon she's under attack. After an intricate fight sequence, Wraith escapes using her rift ability. As she's escaping, she discovered an inmate being subdued by an aggressive scientist. Instead of running, she talks to this inmate who regards her a just another voice in her head. As the inmate listens to her advice, the duo plan an escape but not before it's revealed that they're both the same person. The armored version of Wraith teaches the other one how to harness her abilities and they're about to escape when the previously mentioned Amer Signh suddenly appears. The original Wraith pursues her target while the inmate version is able to use the rift ability to escape the facility and continue searching for answers.
Forever Family
Originally added in season 3, the Forever Family short film introduces players to the hacker, Tae Joon Park. After discovering a strange file leading to a powerful prediction algorithm for the Apex Games, which can easily alter the outcome of matches to someone's favor. Park and his associate Mila Alexander decide to not steal and use it for personal gain, though she does manage to download it to a file. Unfortunately, the download was discovered and traced to their location resulting in Mila's abduction and death. Park is framed for her murder and accused of corporate espionage.
Escaping the hail of bullets, Park goes into hiding and sheds his identity to become Crypto. With his life taken from him, Crypto intends to set the record straight and reclaim his redemption.
Up Close and Personal
Fans may remember this one as it featured a major fake out with regards to a new character. Datamining has always been an issue with Apex Legends as fans were able to delve into game files and code to discover upcoming and unannounced content. In order to throw dataminers off the scent, Respawn created a character known as Forge, who many believed would be the next legend to join the roster. However, as this 1 minute trailer shows, Forge was nothing more than a placeholder character to hide the identity of the true roster addition.
The clip is set up as an interview between the corporate-sponsored celebrity James "The Forge" McCormick and a TV correspondent over his recent qualification to join the Apex Games. While Forge is conducting the interview and hyping himself up, the lights begin to flicker as the simulacrum assassin Revenant appears behind Forge and stabs him through the chest. The correspondent screams as blood splashes over her face before the TV feed is cut.
The Old Ways
Another short film examining one of the original members of the roster, The Old Ways provides a more detailed look at a younger Bloodhound and how they became the feared hunter fans know from the main game. A destructive frost envelops the land, to which future generations would attribute as a result of tampering with the power of machines. Bloodhound's clan have rejected the ways of the machines and instead rely on the old ways of instincts and steel. Young Bloodhound is sent into the woods to track and kill his prey as a rite of passage, returning to the tribe with their target and being made a true member of the tribe.
Things don't go quite as planned for the youngling, who not only gets lost but stumbles into an old bunker filled with technology and weapons. Picking up a charge rifle, Bloodhound is soon hunted by the very prey they were attempting to track. Using the rifle in self defense, Bloodhound slays the massive creature and takes his prize back to the clan. Burying the rifle outside of the village, Bloodhound's deception is quickly found out by his uncle who promptly exiles him for betraying the Old Ways.
As Bloodhound walks away, the creature, thought to have been killed, returns and is poised to destroy the village. As massive fight ensues between the villagers, Bloodhound, and the creature. As things begin to look dire and Bloodhound's uncle is mortally wounded, the charge grenade inside of the now broken rifle is used to chase the beast off. Before dying, Bloodhound's uncle tells them that it wasn't the weapon that saved and protected the villagers and makes the youngling the first Bloodhound of the village. Before the short film ends, Bloodhound returns to the bunker and slays the creature once and for all.
Legacy of the Thief
Picking up where the Revenant character trailer left off, Legacy of a Thief introduces players to Loba and her desire for revenge over her family's death at the hands of the assassin. It opens with Loba standing over her father's corpse and showing her growing up inside of the foster care system. Before long, Loba takes to becoming a thief, taking what she wants when she wants it.
While she continued to gain wealth, power, and notoriety, her real motivations behind this lifestyle was to track down her parent's killer, Revenant.
The Endorsement
The Endorsement features Ramya "Rampart" Parekh and gives players insight into her background story. While Rampart's day job is running a modding shop and producing some top notch weaponry, she's gotten a big reputation after becoming a successful fighter in the underground circuit. This has earned her a bit of unwanted attention as enemies soon come calling.
The film opens with Rampart, Gibraltar, and Bangalore having a good time hanging out at the mod shop after what seems to be another underground win. As Rampart goes to close up shop, she's confronted by five characters there to clearly take her out, likely from a rival faction. Considering her skill at modding, her shop is lined with booby traps as she quickly dispatches the group. However, the leader appears in the doorway with a strange glow on one of her eyes. A specter suddenly drops in and Rampart activates her ultimate Amped Cover ability before getting blindsided from behind and knocked out. Upon waking, she's greeted by a person Titanfall fans will likely remember.
Promise
While Season 7 promised a number of big changes to Apex Legends, players were also given an early look at the next Legend to join the roster, Doctor Mary "Horizon" Somers. The heartbreaking tale is told from the perspective of Horizon reading a story to her child or perhaps a recording device which is then intended to relay the story to her child once she finally reunites with them.
Ultimately, this is a tale of her plight after being tasked with solving a critical energy crisis. Tinkering away on a solution, Somers eventually became the face of the project which seems to have alienated people close to her like her lab assistant. Ultimately, the solution was found but forced them to travel into space to harvest crystals needed to power the device. Promising her son she'd return, Somers was ultimately betrayed by her assistant and left for dead without a way to return home. Unwilling to accept this fate, Somers remembered her promise and developed a solution to escape her plight, though jumping through the newly formed portal would ultimately cost her 87 years and a chance to see her son again. For now, she continues to search for a way to keep her promise made.
Fight Night
The latest short film gives players a background on everyone's favorite robot companion, Pathfinder. The film features a noir style thriller tone headlined by the MRVN unit Pathfinder and former detective, now security guard, Victor Maldera. The scene opens with Maldera describing his life up to this point, a famed detective that has closed many big cases including the double homicide of Loba's parents. Life has changed for the former detective as one last target has managed to continually elude him. Before long, Pathfinder accidentally murders a restaurant patron after a bullet ricochets off his screen and back at the individual.
Springing into action, Maldera apprehends the overly friendly robot and jacks into his memory to figure out what happens. During the video scrub, Maldera discovers that Pathfinder has information on his target, the elusive criminal Caustic. The two also stumble onto a hidden video which seems to indicate the purpose to which Pathfinder was built. Unfortunately, the person was related to the mob, who storms the location to apprehend the robot and Maldera, who attempts to flee in order to extract the Caustic video. A massive chase ensues, with Stalker robots infiltrating the ship. Before long, the two protagonists become unlikely allies while trying to stave off the mob and finally discover what the cryptic video message actually means, though as the video teases, not everyone makes it twelve rounds.
Interestingly enough, a segment in the film reveals that Pathfinder has somehow secretly been in each Legend's origin story to this point.
Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Switch version in development.