Apex Legends Mobile Now Official, Regional Beta Tests Announced

If you’re a hardcore fan of Apex Legends, you’ll be elated to find out that the oft-rumored mobile port is right around the corner! In fact, a closed beta test is scheduled to commence in a matter of days!

Apex Legends Mobile isn’t just any port — it is a bespoke, tailor-made experience that is tweaked, tuned, and optimized for touchscreens with streamlined controls and “thoughtful optimizations that result in the most advanced battle royale combat available on a phone.”

A few thousand players in India and the Philippines will be able to participate in the closed beta with other regions joining in throughout the year. The beta will initially only be available on Android, but iOS will also be supported at a later date. Once the game gathers a bit of momentum, EA will launch an official website for players to pre-register for early access along with all game-related updates.

Apex Legends Mobile won’t feature any cross-play as it is a separate game built from the ground-up, but it will be free-to-play and should be fairly well optimized upon release as well. There’s still no official spec sheet available, but we’re guessing most modern Snapdragon SoCs will suffice, including the four-year-old SD835. In true EA fashion, Apex Legends Mobile will also feature in-game cosmetics, unlockable items, boosts, along with unique Battle Passes — so pretty much the entire Apex experience on-the-go!

Impressive graphics, all things considered!

Mobile Ports | The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Now the only thing left for us to see is just how good of a “port” it’ll actually be. The one for the Nintendo Switch is good, but far from great. If you just want to play on-the-go and not think twice about it then it’ll definitely get the job done. If, on the other hand, you’re competitive and want to climb the ranks, then you’ll definitely be at a disadvantage given just how bad the draw distance is and how blurred everything looks (models, textures, etc.).

Fortunately, based on the very few in-game shots we’ve been given, it’s fair to say that Respawn won’t be making the same “mistake” twice. (to be fair, the quality of the aforementioned Switch port isn’t their fault) Of course, it’s still too early to predict anything with confidence, but the potential is certainly there. The fact that this is a bespoke port, one that is built from the ground up, has surely given them the luxury of nuanced optimization. That, in the case of the Nintendo Switch, simply wasn’t possible for a wide variety of reasons. Well, at least not to such a high degree.

A Risky Endeavor

Still, there are many ways in which Apex Legends Mobile could fail. We’re talking about a fast-paced first-person shooter that relies heavily on precision and reaction-time. Respawn need to deliver in more ways than one, but they don’t have to create a 1:1 port of the real game — they just need to recreate the feeling you get when playing Apex on PC or console. Look at what Riot did with LoL: Wild Rift, for instance. It’s not actually League of Legends, but it feels so darn close that you can easily pick it up and start playing in a heartbeat.

That’s the ultimate goal, and we hope Respawn will be able to achieve it. Either way, we’ll have some actual gameplay footage to break down soon enough so stay tuned!