Apex Legends Breaks New Record on Steam Despite Recent Controversy

After the success of previous seasons of Apex Legends it probably doesn't surprise anyone anymore, that the launch of the new one attracted crowds of players. The launch of Defiance has made Respawn Entertainment's battle royale set a new activity record on Steam.

Apex Legends has conquered Steam yet again

After recent controversy over the high price of one of the skins introduced in the new season, one might have wondered how this would translate into attendance for season 12. Well, apparently not at all:

1. On the opening day of the event (i.e. February 9) Apex Legends was played by almost 393,000 concurrent Steam users at the hottest moment. That's 60,000 more than in May 2021, when the game set the previous record.
2. At the time of publishing this news Apex Legends was the fourth most popular item on Steam, ahead of the likes of Lost Ark and Grand Theft Auto V.

Let's remember that this is just activity on Steam. Apex Legends is also available on consoles and through Origin. The title is quite popular on these platforms as well, and yet we're still waiting for a game update dedicated to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Apex Legends: Defiance - what's new?

Season 12 brought with it a new battle pass, but also a lot of changes.

1. Olympus map has been redesigned. It's much larger now (thanks to a new area, among other things), and some of the locations have been changed to make it easier for players to escape the cramped spots or introduce more interactive areas.
2. A new legend has joined the game - Mad Maggie, known from season 8. It was her sabotage that caused the changes to the Olympus map. In battle, Maggie uses a huge drill and can mark wounded enemies.
3. The developers have also added a new time-limited gameplay mode called Control. In it, players fight in teams of nine (three groups of three players in each), and all of them have unlimited ammunition and can regenerate indefinitely. The game is enriched by the possibility to change our character after rebirth and the fact that the teams choose their characters independently of each other (read: we can have three of the same Legends in a team).

Of course, there were changes in gameplay balance as well, both for Legends and weapons, as well as PvE clashes with fauna introduced in the previous season. Apart from that, new features have appeared (including the option to filter players in chats), and the developers have took care of another throng of bugs.

Positive player feedback (and issues on consoles)

As you can see by the number of players on Steam, Defiance has encouraged quite a few people to play Apex Legends. Players praise mainly the Control mode, but there were also words of appreciation for various improvements. Internet users appreciated for example the removal of frag negation and assists by exiting the game.

Unfortunately, the start of the big event in the game could not go without some problems. On consoles, players have reported an unjustified drop in performance - this problem was still present at the time of writing.