Is Apex Legends Dying? – The State of Play in 2022

Is Apex Legends dying? The title originally launched in one of the biggest debuts we’ve ever seen and lost a lot of its player base. Accross Apex Legends history though, we’ve seen the game rebuild and go on to have one of the more interesting redemption stories in gaming.

Apex launched in the heyday of the Battle Royale. Fortnite was dominating and every dev wanted their own shot at the genre. There were lots of battle royale games that tried to mirror what Fortnite was doing, but it was Apex Legends that really had the most success. In 2019, Apex Legends came out of nowhere, with huge launch numbers and fun unique mechanics.

Credit: EA

Lots of streamers enjoyed the game, and it was one of the most viewed games on Twitch for quite some time. Apex esports have carved out a niche, but rarely grab the same headlines as some games. More recently, Apex might have run back into some problems more recently. Leaving plenty of players wondering its health as an ongoing game in 2024.

Is Apex Legends Dying?
Considering that Apex Legends appeared in the heat of the moment when battle royale was the most popular genre, it should come as no surprise that it attracted a lot of players, in the beginning, while most left the game did come back and rebuild confidence. Is Apex dying again though? To answer that question, we should look at the most important metrics which can be served as the deciding factor:

Player count
Average Viewership
Tournaments
Update frequency

Player Count
The player count is probably the most important factor in deciding if a game is dying. As long as a game has a healthy player base, everything else essentially follows. For most games its tricky to pinpoint exact player numbers though.

We don’t have the exact number of active players for Apex. The game is available across platforms and few give out player numbers. However, there are some which release figures. Looking at PC, we don’t have numbers for every platform but looking at one can serve as an interesting representation of how far from its peak Apex is. We can largely expect player numbers on other platforms to follow the same trends.

Apex Player Count on Steam Fluctuates
Looking at the player count for Apex Legends, the Steam Chart gives a pretty clear look at its popularity. If you’re wondering is Apex Legends is dying or any other game, this is probably the single best metric. How many people are actually playing the game? Apex has had a really intresting journey in terms of its player count.

On Steam, Apex Legends was released in November 2020, and its peak for concurrent players was 117,193. However, this peak wasn’t the height for long. Apex basically kept growing for a considerable amount of time.

After its huge initial launch, Apex dropped in player numbers in the Apex seasons since though things bounced back. The game gradually built up a bigger and bigger player base. Until recently.

Apex player numbers had peaks and valleys, but broadly built for most of 2022. They climbed until hitting a peak of over 600,000 in early 2023. Since then, there’s been a bit of a decline. The game has settled with around 300-400 thousand players. This isn’t exactly evidence that Apex Legends is dying though.

Source: SteamDB

Average Viewership for Apex Legends
While having players in the game is a great sign of life when it comes to video games, viewership on popular streaming platforms is another good indicator of how good a game is doing. Apex has always been pretty popular on streaming platforms too, just like other Battle Royales. There’s plenty of crossover between the best Fortnite streamers and Apex too. How well has it held up on Twitch?

On its release, Apex Legends had a whopping average viewership of 218,000 on Twitch. After four months, that viewership was dwarfed to 16,500 viewers. Now, this was probably the first time players asked themselves, “Is Apex dying”?

However, the viewership slowly began to increase, and at one point, it hit an average of 125,000 in 2021. From there, the viewership dipping and climbed from 60,000 to 90,000, at times it was still the most watched Battle Royale though.

Credit: Daniel Morris

Over the last two years. The game has been roughly trending down. There are still peaks which propel it upwards, but average daily viewership has definitely been declining for Apex. The whole thing roughly lines up with the player numbers. As with those player numbers though, the game doesn’t look like it’s dying just yet.

While Apex viewing figures aren’t at their peak, they are still healthy though. Is Apex dying being a yes would really require a much heavier drop. Apex is still one of the most popular titles on Twitch.

Average Viewership
While having players in the game is a great sign of life when it comes to video games, viewership on popular streaming platforms is another good indicator of how good a game is doing. After all, a game can be alive, but if there is no interest in it for viewership, it is bound to die out at one point.

However, the viewership slowly began to increase, and at one point, it hit an average of 125,000 in 2021. Since then, the viewership has been dipping and climbing from 60,000 to 90,000, which surprisingly makes it the most-watched game in the battle royale category. Another sign that the game is still growing strong!

Are there any tournaments?

Even if there are players who enjoy playing and watching the game, people are bound to quit at one point if there is no esports for it in today’s era of video games. Luckily there are plenty of Apex Legends tournaments on the horizon. The biggest one is certainly the Apex Legends Global Series, where the prize pool is $2,000,000!

Apex has a huge competitive scene that runs regular events. It’s a fun game to play competitively and looks fairly healthy in this regard.

Is the game getting regular updates?
Lastly, we are at our last factor for is Apex dying; is it being supported?

As a live service game, regular updates are completely mandatory for players to stay interested. New Apex seasons are still arriving at the same frequency as ever. The big change has been a slowdown for new Legends. This has often lead to a more fun game though, with its old legends actually getting balanced better.

Most fans of a live service game have seasons which are stronger and weaker for them. At the moment it’s on a run of poorer seasons. However, it could fix a lot of this. Apex isn’t an exception to live service game peaks and valleys. However, the game is heavily supported and is never more than a season or two away from turning things around.

Is Apex Dying? Mobile Already Has
The elephant in the room for asking is Apex Legends dying has to be mobile. That game has had ups and downs and was shut down a little less than a year after release.

The mobile version of Apex was handled by a different developer to the mainline game and really branched off in its own direction. It shutting down really can’t be interrupted as meaningful for the mainline game. Current rumours and might even suggest a new mobile game is in development.

Apex Legends might not be at the height of its powers at the beginning of 2024. However, the game is far away from being dead. It has shown longevity and a willingness to fix its problems that few games do. We’ll probably have new Apex Legends seasons for a long time to come.