Apex Legends Needs A Solo Mode Now More Than Ever

Since Apex Legends released without warning or promotion back in February 2019, it has been my game of choice for the battle royale (BR) genre that has taken the videogames industry by storm over the last couple of years. I love the fast-paced nature of the gameplay that is heavily inspired by the Titanfall games of the same developer – Respawn Entertainment – which I loved. Apex Legends took a different approach with BR as well by adding Overwatch-esque ‘heroes’ with abilities and ultimates that all feel quite balanced and useful in their own way. I practically love everything about Apex Legends, except that they STILL have not added a solo playlist for players such as myself that mainly play solo and have been asking for it since release.

I played a lot of Apex Legends when it released, but I slightly fell off a few weeks into the first season because it was just lacking the content I was used to from the BR genre. That’s mainly because Epic Games’ Fortnite has been spoiling us with weekly content and updates since release. The developers of Apex Legends said that they didn’t want to include ‘crunch time’ for their team so they will be sticking to these big seasonal updates, which I wholeheartedly respect, and I think they definitely delivered with season two. Unfortunately, with all these new changes, it makes me want a solo mode more than ever.

Season two added weekly and daily challenges similar to Fortnite as well as an improved battle pass, a new ranked game mode and some great changes to the map. These are all things that have brought me back to daily Apex sessions and I’ve been loving it, but with these new add-ons comes new assholes. Since Apex Legends is still locked to a three-man team, you have people who join a game just to do challenges or people who leave a match immediately in the new ranked mode even if you’re running towards them to revive them/retrieve their banner and it’s getting annoying.

I understand that their vision was probably to have this whole ‘team dynamic’ having the heroes working together with their abilities and that’s fine, but regardless of how you make a team game, there will always be assholes. Most BR games I have played have offered solo, duo and/or squad modes, so it’s just a head-scratcher why Respawn Entertainment is lacking on that front. The only reason I could think of why they don’t want to do it is that it basically removes the need for their ping system, which is an excellent solution for players who don’t want to use their mics with random players or just making callouts in general.

Regardless, I think Apex Legends would benefit from a solo mode because it would bring people in who have been looking for it from the beginning and it would keep people like myself who don’t want to deal with assholes. Sometimes I just want to enjoy my time with this excellent BR game. It would also let players who are just doing the challenges hop into a game and go wherever they want without the jumpmaster choosing the location for them or breaking off and going on their own anyway.

I think there are only two solutions which are: make the punishment for leaving a game more severe or release a solo mode. Please Respawn, don’t make me hate your game because of the assholes that play it, let me become an Apex Predator (the highest rank) on my own terms, either with a team that will be punished for leaving or with the only person I trust, myself.