More or less two years after launching on on PC and console, EA and Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale shooter, Apex Legends, debuts on Nintendo Switch today. Apex Legends is experiencing something a second wind of late. Thanks in part to the recently launched Season 8 – Mayhem reviving the interest of lapsed players and the game’s Steam launch late last year. The Nintendo Switch port couldn’t have come at a better time.
Like the PC and console players, Switch owners can jump into Apex Legends for free and even benefit from some welcome catch-me-up features. These include a Legendary Pathfinder skin, 30 free levels for the Season 8 Battle Pass, and double XP, granted after a login anytime during the next two weeks. Respawn hasn’t specified a precise time for the Apex Legends Switch port’s launch, vaguely noting sometime this evening Pacific Time.
Apex Legends On Nintendo Switch
Panic Button, the developer charged with bringing the Switch port to life, notes that Apex Legends runs at a target performance of 30fps with a 720p resolution docked and 576p in handheld mode. There are naturally concerns that console and PC players, who benefit from a 60 fps and 144 fps cap, respectively, have an unfair advantage.
According to a Famitsu interview, Switch players will be able to disable cross-play, giving them a choice to battle it out with Switch players only and scrub the performance advantage. Despite the performance disparity, Respawn aims for feature parity. To that end, Apex Legends on Switch will benefit from dedicated live service support as well as the same content updates, limited-time modes, and in-game events as existing platforms.
Lastly in what’s a busy day for Apex news, accompanying today’s Switch launch is the start of The Chaos Theory Collection Event. It’s now live on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. The event, which doubles as a hefty update, features new unlockable skins, a new Ring Fury Escalation Takeover mode, and a Caustic Town Takeover, alongside the usual slice of nerfs, buffs, and quality of life improvements. It’s now live on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, and runs until March 23.
