Just days after launching, Apex Legends is proving to be a big hit. Respawn Entertainment's battle royale game drew in 1 million players in less than eight hours of going live and later amassed over 2.5 million unique users within 24 hours.
Now, it seems the game's rise to popularity isn't slowing down. Within just 72 hours, its player count now hits the 10 million marker.
Another Milestone
Respawn's CEO Vince Zampella admitted that doing a surprise launch for Apex Legends was never a safe bet, but now things are looking up for the studio after all.
"We knew it would be risky to take the franchise in this direction, to go free to play, and do a surprise launch. But we fell in love with Apex Legends and wanted, needed, other people to play it too," Zampella said in a blog post.
The game has been getting a warm reception since day one, hitting milestone after milestone in an unbelievably short period. Earlier this week, it had 2.5 million unique players in just a day. Three days after its initial launch, Apex Legends is now 10 million players strong.
In the midst of Apex Legends' success, even PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, congratulated Respawn in a tweet.
Really great job by the team @Respawn. A fantastic launch with a great new take on the battle royale game mode! GG WP <3 https://t.co/96q9vCeXCi — PLAYERUNKNOWN (@PLAYERUNKNOWN) February 5, 2019
To put things into perspective, Fortnite, another popular free-to-play shooter in the battle royale genre, needed two weeks to rake in 10 million players.
Apex Legends Update
Set in the Titanfall universe, Apex Legends is a free-to-play battle royale shooter available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Though cross-platform play is not available at launch, Electronic Arts and Respawn have hinted at the possibility in the near future.
A mobile version of Apex Legends could also be available sometime soon, as mentioned by EA CEO Andrew Wilson during a recent investors call.
