There’s no denying the popularity of Apex Legends, the latest battle royale game from Titanfall developer, Respawn. The free-to-play shooter is already among the year’s most acclaimed and played games, having been quickly propelled up the charts thanks to its smooth launch, accessible and crisp gameplay, and perfected matchmaking system.
Interestingly, however, was the fact the game was actually leaked almost a year ago, and no one at the time seemed to care or even be paying attention.
In fact, most of the people that did see the leak didn’t seem all that impressed by the concept.
As spotted by the folks over at Polygon, the leaker jumped to Reddit (don’t they always?) with a thread titled, “Alleged minimap for Rumored Titanfall Battle Royale game”.
In the thread, they linked to an image of a map that looks coincidentally similar to the map in the final version of Apex Legends, as it was released last month.
Hilariously, the thread was downvoted to hell and back, unsurprising considering it was posted on the Titanfall sub, and those are a committed group if Titanfall fanatics over there.
“I really hope this doesn’t happen,” pretty much sums up the reaction at the time.
Having already hit the 25 million player mark — with more seemingly joining across Xbox One, PS4 and PC by the day — it seems likely that Apex Legends will eventually find itself on the professional circuit, and battling it out with Fortnite for streaming supremacy.
Much of its success will ride on the game’s ability to keep the experience feeling fresh and challenging, prompting a growing but also committed fanbase that is looking to get involved in the latest big thing in gaming.
Respawn has already promised new characters, weapons and abilities, but perhaps the most important addition will be that of its Battle Pass and upcoming competitive Seasons.
The current Roadmap, as offered up by Respawn directly on Twitter, gives us a breakdown of just when we can expect things to really kick off in the world of Apex Legends, including when we might expect Season 1 to start.
