7 Video Games That Aren't About What You Think

By the time Apex Legends hit digital storefronts in February 2019, the world was already sick to death of free-to-play games with loot boxes and predatory microtransactions, and, to a lesser extent, the world was also sick of battle royales.

So when we learned that EA - the company whose greedy practices had just caused a mess with Star Wars Battlefront II - was publishing a game that ticked all of those checkboxes? The common response was a massive groan.

Understandably then, a lot of people tend to dismiss Apex because of its business model and genre, but it needs to be said that this game is nowhere near as two-dimensional as it looks.

At face value, it's just a basic battle royale, but unlike most other games of its ilk, Apex actually has a rich world, character motives, and an overarching narrative that's been playing out since the game first launched.

There's far too much to touch on here, but Apex is set in the aftermath of the Frontier War, which forced people to abandon the Frontier and head to a planet cluster called the Outlands, where the Apex Games are set.

Each of the Legends who partakes in the games has a backstory and a reason for being there, which we learn about through lore videos, lines of dialogue, and comics found in the game's menus.

For instance, Wraith gained her phase powers after some dodgy experiments, a story that was explored in the 2019 Voidwalker short. And that's just one small example.

If you haven't given Apex too much attention, it's easy to miss out on the depth of its lore and the expansiveness of its universe, because these are attributes that nobody expects to find in a free-to-play battle royale game.

If you want more story though, it's right there.