Much like the players entering the game, “Apex Legends” jumped out of sky on Monday to join the battle royale fray, and it looks like it’s here to stay.

“Apex Legends” is a new battle royale game that takes elements from hero shooters like Team Fortress 2 or Overwatch, having players pick different ‘Legends’ to play as that each have unique abilities.

Some of the abilities Legends have range from the ability to track where other players are to having an airstrike target a certain area of the map. Every hero has their own pros and cons, making it so there is not one hero rising above any of the eight that are currently available.

Right when players start the game, there are 6 Legends available to play, with two being open to unlock either with in-game currency or purchasable tokens. These Legends are not better or worse than any of the free heroes available, but I did notice while playing that people did not know how to counter their abilities due to them being locked. However, I’m sure this will change as players put more time into the game.

Along with the addition of heroes, one excellent thing that “Apex Legends” adds to separate it from other games in the battle royale genre is its communication system. The game uses pings in order to have players communicate where they want to go, where enemies might be and what items are available to pick-up.

The ping system is fantastic, because players who don’t have a mic can still coordinate with their teammates. While playing solo in Apex, it feels like you can actually talk to random players that you get put on a team with compared to other battle royale games.

One small improvement I would love to see to this system would be being able to ping specific players in the middle of a game. If one teammate is running low on health or needs a specific kind of ammo, being able to single out who you want to pickup an item would be a great addition. This is a small nitpick though, and this system as it stands is already close to perfection.

Like a lot of multiplayer based games upon release, I encountered some connection issues with the game. While leaving a game after either winning or dying, I would sometimes get booted back to the main menu screen after disconnecting from the EA servers, and at one point this weekend one of my squadmates would repeatedly get booted out of any game we would join. There has already been one patch that fixed some connection issues players were having, so hopefully in the future these problems won’t affect anyone else.

The game does have microtransactions in the form of Apex Coins, which can be used to buy loot boxes and specific skins in game. The microtransactions are mainly cosmetic, however there is an option in the store to buy the two locked Legends with Apex Coins. Everything can be unlocked just by playing the game, but the microtransactions offer a shortcut to getting your favorite gun or hero’s skin.

“Apex Legends” is a fantastic addition to the battle royale family, and I look forward to seeing what the future will bring for the game.