Executive Summary

• EA hopes to find its audience as Apex Legends Mobile features the most polished and dynamic Battle Royale gameplay on mobile.
• But with hugely popular games like Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG Mobile, and Garena Free Fire having locked down the shooter market, EA struggles to promote its game and appeal to the masses.
• Apex Legends Mobile has enough ways to differentiate itself from the competition but at the cost of being less mainstream.
• The game’s focus on exclusively squad-based teamplay might create too big of a disadvantage compared to its biggest rivals.
• Currently, Apex Legends Mobile’s daily ARPDAU is on par with its competitors, but in terms of RPD, it still has a long way to go.

Introduction

Having been acquired by Electronic Arts in December 2017, the new subsidiary, Respawn Entertainment, probably pitched Apex Legends to management shortly after, which must have sounded something like “Battle Royale featuring Overwatch-esque heroes.” Apparently after some convincing, they agreed to go forward with the development of the game for PC and console.

Years later, all respectable Battle Royale games have been ported to or developed for mobile, and EA is among the last to join the party by releasing Apex Legends Mobile (ALM). It’s not a port featuring cross-play with PC and console like Fortnite but a dedicated experience for smartphones, similar to its direct competitors.

First, let’s set some things straight. Throughout this article we’ll be comparing Apex Legends Mobile (ALM) with some or all of these competitors: Call of Duty Mobile (CoDM), PUBG Mobile (PUBGM) and Garena Free Fire (GFF), depending on the relevance of the comparison.

Here’s a quick overview on who’s behind each of these games:

ALM was developed by Tencent’s Lightspeed & Quantum Studios, which also developed PUBGM in 4 months back in 2018. Therefore, any link or comparison to PUBGM’s gameplay is logical and will therefore be less of a focus throughout this piece. The difference is that PUBGM was published by Tencent as well, while ALM has been published by Electronic Arts and was co-developed “under supervision” of Respawn Entertainment.

Additionally — and this is a messy story — CoDM was also developed by a Tencent Subsidiary, TiMi (one of the biggest mobile development studios in the world, with over $10B reported revenue in 2020), which in early 2018 also released a (very different) version of PUBG as well. Tencent is very much prone to having its subsidiaries compete hard for the same audience, and ALM and CoDM are no exception.

For a more thorough deep dive on what motivates players when it comes to Battle Royale gameplay, read all about Garena Free Fire in our deconstruction from March.

Back to ALM. The fact that the game is made by a highly experienced team like LS&Q has kept ALM free from UX issues that other competitors like Final Fantasy: The First Soldier suffer from. The resulting smooth experience has allowed ALM to compete with the biggest hits of the present day.

So How Is That Going?

Well, as mentioned in June, the game had a pretty good launch, grossing $4.8M in its first week. Fueled by its golden cohort of 5.5M players that installed the week after launch, the Revenue Per Download floats around $1. When comparing this with Call of Duty: Mobile, it actually floats at the same level in terms of monetization potential right after launch. The other two (older) competitors had a different launch strategy (and target markets) and only reached this mark more than a year after their launches.

In terms of revenue, there’s no reason to be alarmed yet. Compared with CoDM, the game seems to be able to monetize just fine for a game its age. The issue is that Activision’s prodigy didn’t have its monetization even close to finalized at launch, but it managed to improve over time. Presuming ALM can follow a similar improvement curve is a bold statement, as the game’s feature set and live-ops calendar look quite complete already.

More alarming trends can be seen in terms of downloads, where ALM is simply in a lower league than its competitors. First of all, Call of Duty has been one of the biggest IPs in gaming for years now. This became clear in September 2019 when it smashed all records by having 1.3% of Earth’s population download its mobile version within a week after its launch. The U.S. market has been accounting for about 45% of its revenue ever since.

Next, PUBG is huge in China, where it alone rakes in about $90M per month. This feat makes PUBG the most lucrative mobile shooter worldwide, with a 4-5x margin from the others. Garena Free Fire is a strange yet fierce competitor as it has been serving the world’s less privileged smartphone owners. This is also not something Apex Legends is aiming to compete with when looking at its download size, device requirements, and the amount of player reviews that litter its store page at the moment complaining about bad performance on lower-end devices.

When looking at regional opportunities, ALM’s biggest market in terms of downloads is the US, but this is where CoDM reigns as well. Interestingly, the US is not ALM’s most lucrative region. 42% of ALM’s lifetime revenue comes from Japan, and it has managed to do this with less than a third of the downloads compared to the US. While the (all-time) RPD over there is a meager $0.75, in Japan it has hit a very comfortable $3.70!

Thematically, one wouldn’t be crazy to predict that the Japanese audience most likely has more affinity with the more fantastically themed world of ALM than the more realistic army setting CoDM provides, and since the Japanese are notorious for their royal spending (CoDM’s all-time RPD has recently reached $10), EA would be smart to not let this market go unnoticed.

Additionally, the game hasn’t seen the light in China yet either, which must be quite high on EA’s agenda, even though it took CoDM 15 months to get its game green-lit there. It’s difficult to say if or when this would happen for ALM, as foreign games are mostly being ignored in terms of approval. At this point, even Tencent and NetEase have not been seeing any approvals for quite some time.

And then there’s India, Asia’s fastest growing market. A renamed version of PUBG was released in India after it was banned from the stores for a year, and GFF is currently locked in the same situation. While ALM is downloadable as usual in India right now, it’s not performing much at all. EA’s new shooter gained better traction in other countries like Taiwan and Thailand, albeit only a minor fraction compared to the US and Japan revenue.

Generally speaking, ALM’s downloads are rapidly decreasing and have even dipped under GFF over the last two weeks. Safe to say, this is not a good sign when your game is only two months old. Which is why we currently foresee Apex Legends facing trouble holding its own in the already crowded mobile shooter market. But maybe things can go differently?

In this piece, we’ll:

• Deconstruct its game modes, systems, cosmetic options, and experience
• Compare how the game relates to Apex Legends on PC and console
• Compare how ALM differentiates itself from its competitors
• Suggest ways how EA can try and increase ALM’s success

How Does The Game Work?

The Game Loop

Given there’s not a huge amount of variety in terms of game modes in games like these, one would think a relatively simple meta game would be a good fit. Well… think again. ALM’s meta is rich and complex.

The game features pure progression-based tasks, which simply require the player to keep playing matches in any game mode. By doing so, they gather EXP, which unlocks heroes, as well as basic rewards like Syndicate Packs (the game’s loot boxes) and Flux (the game’s deco currency). Early on, this EXP progression takes care of unlocking most of the Legends and the other game modes in a natural, level-based manner.

In proper F2P fashion, there are ways to earn specific rewards by participating in seasonal events that earn the player Event Points. These in turn translate into more Syndicate Packs, Flux (the game’s cosmetic currency), but more notably they award unique Legend skins or weapon skins that can’t be earned anywhere else.

But as pioneered by Fortnite during 2018, Battle Royale games have ever since banked heavily on the seasonal progression a Battle Pass has to offer. Apex Legends is no different. The lion’s share of the game’s rewards are earned through the completion of Battle-Pass-related tasks. Be it daily, seasonal, or Battle-Pass-specific tasks, in the end all challenges the player is tasked to complete feed into this system. Eventually, every kind of reward the game has to offer makes its appearance throughout Battle Pass engagement in some way, as is shown in the following, beautifully readable currency diagram:

At the time of writing, the game’s second season (and Battle Pass) — themed ‘Cold Snap’ — has reached its apex. The Diamonds from season 1 have been exchanged for a new currency. At the start of a new season, all old seasonal currency disappears, which will be something beginner players won’t expect as these currencies are never mentioned to be time-limited.

When looking at the first battle pass, we can see the emerging pattern of a legendary weapon and Legend skin being the chase prizes to purchase the pass.

The game offers two kinds of price points for the Battle Pass, the second one catering towards players who need to “catch up” after a break or simply not playing enough to reach the end. For everyone else (except players who must have that season-exclusive Avatar Frame), the ‘normal’ Premium will suffice.

One interesting phenomenon that happens is that players are able to purchase additional battle pass levels using hard currency, but this option only appears after having purchased the pass. This has been implemented to counteract potential buyer’s remorse in case players still don’t make it to the end, even after having bought Premium or Premium Plus.

Game Modes

Battle Royale

This mode is ALM‘s bread and butter, as it’s unlocked by default. 60 players across 20 3-player squads face off against each other in an ever-shrinking arena. Players eject from their aircraft and will have to find weapons on the map; there is no automatic shield restoration. The last squad standing wins. No ranking is kept, removing as much pressure from having to win as possible.

Multiplayer

This catch-all category offers rounds of gameplay that are shorter than the lengthy Battle Royale matches. Several modes are present, but none of these are unlocked for starting players right away. A quick breakdown of each Multiplayer mode:

• Team Deathmatch: This mode unlocks after the player has reached level 5, which should be possible after about 2 hours of gameplay. It’s a classic 6v6 FPS battle. Players respawn, they can select their loadouts, and shields restore automatically. The good thing about this mode is that the rounds are short, but it lacks the compelling aspects and strategies that players will download a Battle Royale game for. Given it unlocks later, some players that are looking for more low-threshold gameplay might miss out on this and churn before it’s unlocked.
• Arena: Just like on PC/console, Arena mode has two squads of three players facing off in an elimination-style deathmatch until one squad is left. Because the map shrinks (using the signature BR ring mechanic) and the fact that players do not respawn, this game mode does offer the strategy and depth BR does, but in a miniature fashion. This joy can be unlocked at player level 10, which requires about 6 to 8 hours of gameplay.
• Gun Game: A newly introduced mode that’s similar to Team Deathmatch, but with players gaining power with every kill.
• Hack: This is a round-based, asymmetric 6v6 battle where one team takes the role of Hacker and the other team Defends. Weapons, abilities, and consumables need to be purchased with in-round materials. With each of the four rounds the squads change roles.

Additionally, for starting players who want to first practice their skills, there’s a whole separate “Practice” tab that offers a Firing Range, Mastery Missions, and Tutorials.

Ranked

In this mode, unlocked at player level 8, players try to increase their rank by battling using the usual Battle Royale settings through 42 different sub-ranks. As opposed to CoDM, where most game modes can be started in ranked mode, ALM shows that it’s really a Battle Royale game first by only keeping track of ranking in Battle Royale mode. The eight ranks from Iron till Diamond ranks have five sub-ranks each. Additionally, there are the two top ranks: Master and Predator, the latter containing the top 750 players worldwide. There are no placement matches, which means that at the beginning of every season all players have to start again at the lowest rank and work their way up.

The entire system of ranked play is built on Ranked Points (RP) and works the same way as in the game’s PC/console version. Except in the initial rank, players pay RP to start a ranked match. The fact that the entry cost depends on a player’s rank makes the stakes go up every time a player’s rank increases. For example, starting a match when ranked Diamond deducts 3-4 times as much RP compared to starting a ranked match in the Bronze rankings.

Actions during a match that award RP afterwards are making kills, assists, and surviving longer as a squad. In case the result is good enough, players will come out of the game with more RP rewarded than what it costs them to start the match.

Loadout

Compared to other — much earlier released — games, ALM definitely offers a good starting amount of weapon skins at this point, but in comparison, CoDM has more of those very elaborate skins which players who love using this particular weapon would grind towards. The important thing to mention here is that ALM is banking on those unique weapon skins as well. On one hand, it’s behind as it simply doesn’t have the amount of variation that years of content creation allow for, but on the other hand, it also means that ALM still has much more space to push the limits than its competitors. And when this will happen, its futuristic theme will allow for less dissociated results than its competitors, which all started as relatively realistic war shooters and now have resorted to weapon skins that can only be classified as “totally bonkers.”

ALM has all the building blocks that allow players to build out the ultimate loadouts to show off their collections, following the “Best in Slot” principle. The game gives players the opportunity to collect lots of customization elements that are visible not only during the gameplay itself — like Legend skins, weapon skins, and finishers — but also beforehand and afterwards in their Legend banners and player avatars.

Some options, like the parachute from CoDM, are not present in ALM as the characters don’t use them but use thrusters when landing. Instead, ALM already has a place for Skydive Emotes and Holo Sprays, although these two customizations are hardly unlockable at this point. CoDM features a couple more options like grenade skins, wingsuit skins, and backpack skins, but ALM definitely has enough options to allow players to build a killer loadout.

Perks

Something that’s exclusive to the mobile version of Apex Legends is the new Perks system. These character-specific talent trees allow the player to gradually choose what they want to specialize in first for each character they play with. The perks that are unlocked grant positive additional effects on the character’s play style, like revealing the location of the rest of an enemy’s squad on the mini-map after finishing off one of its members. Additionally, each Legend’s perk tree contains EmojiPacks, a player avatar, and avatar frame featuring that Legend.

Only three of these perks can be equipped at a time after unlocking them: one general perk, one related to the Legend’s finisher move, and a perk that boosts one of the Legend’s abilities. The perks system is balanced so that no drastic, groundbreaking modifiers are applied, but it still allows for personal preference in terms of talent building. Perks are only applied during Battle Royale mode to keep the other game modes more balanced. It’s a very welcome addition to games like these, which otherwise have relatively little meta progression except for stat rankings and skins, as it gives players lots of goals to achieve. On top of that, it adds clear, motivational milestones to start working towards, and it clearly shows progress when learning to play a new character, something that CoDM, for example, is not able to facilitate.

In the future, when the amount of Legends reaches its limit, all of the character’s perk trees could get extended to facilitate more elaborate strategic depth and differentiation between a single Legend’s play styles while adding more stretch goals.

Game UX

It’s not always easy to categorize what exactly is different when comparing mobile shooters with each other, but seemingly subtle differences within the User Experience itself can play a huge role. Below follows a non-exhaustive summary of some aspects of ALM’s experience that grab the attention when analyzed.

FTUE

The most important part of any game is its onboarding, which can often also be one of the most complicated aspects to get right. Games that are able to seamlessly take new players and slowly evolve them into seasoned experts are nothing less than pieces of art.

ALM manages to come quite close to this, where the way it makes players comfortable first before dropping them in between 57 hostile, more skilled players is very generous, similar to, or maybe even slightly more than, CoDM. Inherent to the punishing nature of the Battle Royale genre is its ruthless loss condition and highly populated environments. For this reason, it takes ALM players around four to six hours to even start seeing real players as opponents. Right around the time the Ranked mode unlocks at player level 8, increasingly more bots start getting replaced by real players until none are left. Seemingly this can take up to player level 14, to make sure all players have enough time to learn how to shoot their (inferior, AI-controlled) opponents.

Weapons

When compared to games like PUBGM and Fortnite, ALM is lightyears ahead in terms of its loot UX. All items are nicely color-coded so players can easily recognize the must-have gear among the ones they found. Where PUBG still feels like an early-access game and the difference in guns is pretty generic, ALM takes weapon feel to the next level, with every gun feeling clearly different in terms of bullet spray, reload speed, recoil, etc. This can partially be attributed to the theme of the game, which allows for more futuristic types of weapons that use energy as ammunition.

Compared to its bigger brother on PC, by far the best change in ALM is that a player’s Legend automatically picks up (relevant) loot in addition to automatically opening doors. It would be way too finicky and taxing to have to go through the sometimes quite long lists of items you find throughout the map or on slaughtered opponents.

A small drawback of ALM is that sometimes the developers assume players have played the PC version. This shows, for example, when suddenly realizing that there’s a crafting system hidden in the levels that’s never been explained. Another thing that the player is expected to figure out on their own are the aforementioned finisher moves, which isn’t a bad thing on its own as it only provides fun and variation without adding any strategic advantage.

Challenging Challenges

When it comes to the game’s meta systems, there are definitely things that can be flagged to be improved in terms of UX. Take the needless vagueness and complexity of some parts of the meta. Having seen the resource flow diagram earlier in this breakdown definitely suggests that there will be at least some learning curve for starting players simply because of the sheer amount of currencies, events, and missions that are spread around every corner of ALM. A great UX would be able to reduce most of this friction, but this is where ALM drops the ball.

An example to illustrate: It’s pretty darn difficult to analyze which points will be awarded when completing a task. Completing a Daily Mission rewards Activity Points, which the player must assume are symbolized by a little lightning bolt. This fills up a bar which will, when filled, open up four chests. Inside these chests the player will find “Season EXP.”

After navigating to the Season Missions tab, the player is able to collect some nameless triangular points, also filling up a bar that holds six milestone rewards with “Season Points” on it. In turn, on the BP screen (which the player should know to be ‘Battle Pass’) there is no bar as, after close inspection, every task simply awards those same Seasonal Points as seen on the Seasonal Missions tab. And here’s the kicker: Season EXP and Season Points are actually the same thing — points that feed into the Battle Pass!

Every tab has a different UX and visualization of the same result. Sure, most players will just play, complete tasks, and reap their rewards without thinking twice, but this monstrous screen does not make comprehending the systems any easier.

How Does The Game Fit Within The Franchise?

For most of us, it shouldn’t be difficult to imagine seeing a good friend again after years of lockdowns or other geographic restrictions, only to realize that they have changed. Imagine catching up with them in a bar and realizing they have become more easy to engage with. They may have grown as a person, or maybe they have picked up a couple of extra skills, or a combination of the two. For players who have been enjoying the original Apex Legends (which was released in February 2019) on PC, the experience of playing ALM might feel oddly similar to the above scenario, as ALM feels like a more elaborate experience while also being more accessible than its PC counterpart.

First of all, as mentioned before, the Perks system is entirely exclusive to ALM and adds a rewarding progression system to the game that was missing in the process of mastering characters on PC.

Then, the first map that was released on Mobile, World’s Edge, has been a staple in Apex Legends’ map selection since Season 3 on PC. The mobile game also features all the same Legends that were featured on PC but with exclusive additions. A Legend called Fade, whose play style comes closest to Wraith’s, was available at launch. Fade was introduced to the game through the Unleash Punishment time-limited event that triggered right after launch.

And very recently, just before the start of ranked season 2, a second mobile-exclusive Legend was announced. Rhapsody is a Legend who plays music to support and protect her squad members.

It’s a smart move to develop mobile-exclusive Legends, as die-hard fans of the franchise will want to test out the characters. For this, they will have to try the mobile game, even if they usually aren’t mobile players at all. This is not something all PC players will be happy with, but it’s a strong move regardless, as it will definitely pull some of the lesser entitled PC gamers over the line to give ALM a try.

Something that will be a definite relief for these mobile-curious PC players is that it takes much less time to unlock their favorite Legends compared to PC. The reasons why LS&Q/Respawn decided for this are twofold:

1. Mobile players generally have a much shorter attention span than PC gamers
2. Seasoned PC players trying ALM can unlock their favorite Legend easily and keep playing

In terms of match-to-match gameplay, one striking difference is that the space in ALM’s backpack is more generous. As players are bound to miss more when aiming with touch controls, they will need more bullets to down an opponent. For this reason, ALM allows the carrying of more bullets, but also healing items, making the gameplay quite a bit more casual and arcade. You simply don’t die as fast on mobile, which in itself is another choice to allow for a more casual experience compared to PC.

Because of the strongly varying skill ceilings that come with different control schemes, ALM isn’t cross-platform with the PC version, and (unlike on PC) it even has separate matchmaking queues for third- and first-person viewpoints. This shows that LS&Q/Respawn correctly acknowledges that playing in third person comes with certain perks, especially on the much smaller mobile screens.

With regards to game modes, a mobile-specific choice was made for Team Deathmatch. While this gameplay is only available in time-limited events on PC, ALM players can play this mode any time they don‘t have 20 minutes to play a full round of Battle Royale. The drawback of this quickplay-esque mode is that all the strategy which makes this game so attractive is stripped, resulting in a mindless flak fest that can’t be expected to engage many a player for long.

How Does ALM Differentiate Itself From The Rest?

Visuals

ALM is a very interesting game as it features many aspects that drive unique advantages but also disadvantages compared to its competitors. One of the first things that catches the attention is the game’s graphical fidelity and style. Where the other three games clearly feature a more war-inspired theme, ALM has more geometric shapes within its level design. The simple houses and shacks of CoDM make way for complex, asymmetric structures to be explored in ALM. In terms of combat, there is more vertical movement than in the average competitor game.

In terms of raw graphical fidelity, the game looks slightly better than CoDM and is a whole lot prettier than PUBGM and GFF.

Team Play

Next to the player motivation of competition — trying to achieve the best possible result with every match — Battle Royale games usually bank heavily on the “Design” driver through avatar customization. The fact that ALM is hero-based, compared to the other three most popular shooters, means that the player isn’t simply a nameless grunt but one of the carefully crafted characters from the Titanfall universe. While this leaves a little less freedom for crazy customizations of one specific character, in return this provides many extra opportunities in terms of immersion, as the player can douse themselves within the lore and fantasy of this universe by personifying themselves through their favorite heroes.

In terms of player interaction, ALM tries to make players form connections with other players a bit more than its competitors because of its deeper focus on squad teamplay. The game is unique in the sense that it features 3v3 squads only; it’s not possible to queue up in squads of 1, 2, or 4 like in CoDM. While this is a valid strategy on PC/Console, as player immersion is generally higher on these platforms, it’s maybe not the safest bet on mobile, simply because most of the time players are not able or willing to use voice communication because of the varying surroundings they might find themselves in. This lack of versatility probably damages the game’s performance, as being paired with random squadmates is not always a positive experience, and finding your own requires time-consuming social interactions that some players might not want to engage in.

Something that strengthens this focus on teamwork even more is the fact that — because of its hero-based setup — ALM’s gameplay comes closer to games like Overwatch. The right composition of support, tank, and damage-dealing roles can dramatically increase the chances of a squad’s success, especially in higher, more competitive ranks. ALM suffered from a lack of support characters during launch, which they have tried mitigating by releasing Rhapsody quickly afterwards.

Battle Royale & Play Style

One of the biggest competitive advantages of ALM is its focus on creating the most dynamic Battle Royale experiences on mobile. While CoDM is basically a Team Deathmatch game with a Battle Royale mode tacked on (and suffering from quite a lot of issues as a consequence), ALM is really trying to push the envelope when it comes to BR. For this reason, ALM competes more with PUBG and GFF when looking from a purely game-mode-focused perspective.

Within the Battle Royale gameplay, ALM also offers quite a different experience. It has shields and very influential Legend skills. First of all, this results in a much less punishing gameplay as it’s actually pretty difficult to kill a player compared to in CoDM and PUBG where a player can be eliminated with one or two bullets before even realizing what happened.

Many consequences arise from this:

• “Ratting” is more common. Ratting is the FPS of Turtling in RTS, where you build a highly fortified base and play very defensively. In Battle Royale games, and especially in ALM, this strategy is not only smart but simply necessary at times. When a player finds themselves in situations with a low chance of survival, it’s better to flee, hide, heal, gear up, and wait for a more opportunistic situation, as the consequences of not doing so are simply not worth it. Risk-averse gameplay is key.
• Because of the prevalence of aforementioned strategies, movement while healing or recovering shields is more heavily restricted in ALM, while in CoDM the player can simply do so while on the run. This has been done to not make fleeing too easy an option.
• The movement within ALM levels is more fast-paced and dynamic than in its competitors. Typical Apex Legends things like sliding from slopes and gliding from ziplines all increase the maneuverability of the Legends.

Various Other Differences

Additionally, there are other aspects of ALM’s gameplay which differentiate it from others:

• ALM’s characters have unique skills, resulting in additional control options in the UI compared to its competitors. This might be one of the reasons why the game’s controls are more difficult to handle.
• The strategic teamplay element is higher when compared to its competitors. For example, survey beacons — which can only be used by Recon-type Legends — allow previewing where the next circle is going to spawn. This crucial information should then be relayed to the rest of the squad and can be acted on appropriately by moving to the locations in question and being the first squad to set up camp there.
• Vehicles are not implemented yet. Where CoDM has motorbikes, cars, trucks, and even helicopters to traverse the map with more quickly, ALM has none of this as of yet. It’s a disadvantage on one hand, as it’s simply fun to zoom around and surprise unsuspecting players, but it’s most likely not present as it also creates more chaotic gameplay and situations where some squad members are left behind. Additionally, as the PC/console version does feature hovercrafts, a different reason for their absence could be that vehicles are difficult to control on Mobile.

Increasing EA’s Battle Royale’s Chance of Success

At the moment, ALM’s performance is not cutting it in terms of revenue and marketability. While Revenue per Download should be increasing over time, ARPDAU numbers are too low to justify the high price of acquisition. There are multiple changes that might be able to keep acquired players in the game longer by offering a more complete and varied game experience.

Implement Solo and Duo Play

It’s understandable that the developers want to push players into a collaborative environment, as the Legends have designated roles that make up a big part of the team strategy. Soloing a support character would simply make less sense, and yes, they will most likely be picked more infrequently by players queuing up alone, but a lot of players might just want to go and try winning BR by themselves. At least offering players the freedom to not have to worry about their squad members would remove the frustration that arises when a randomly assigned player simply wanders off because they want to play Rambo. CoDM offers players specific matchmaking queues depending on the squad size they pick. ALM could do the same by splitting up matchmaking for 1-, 2- or 3-player squads.

Fix The Controls and Improve Performance

The game is new but it still appears to compete poorly with other shooters when it comes to controls. Many players are voicing their requests with regards to the game’s accessibility options. Players who own a gamepad say it’s an unfair advantage to the players who use touch controls; that’s how big the difference in accuracy is. Additionally, players who use the gamepad can’t customize their key bindings. The other constructive/negative reviews are from players with medium-tier devices encountering lag, high ping, rendering issues, or low frame rates. Given the game is relatively new, it’s typical that this is happening, but it does mean work has to be done in this regard, and it has to be done soon.

Bank on Japan

Where the start of a new ALM season with the accompanying battle pass doesn’t seem to get too many US players excited, ARPDAU in Japan has seen major spikes in revenue both times.

As stated at the start of this article, Japan is actually ALM’s most lucrative market, which is not a surprise. Any product that has a more elaborate character-based narrative than its competitors has the potential to become highly popular in Japan. Therefore, it would make sense to start with locally-themed, seasonal live-ops (which GFF has proven to have highly lucrative potential) in this locale first whenever there’s capacity.

Transmedia Potential

The first Titanfall game released in 2014, but with Titanfall 2 in 2016, the universe started to be developed from a narrative perspective. Not counting a flopped mobile-only title (Titanfall: Assault), Apex Legends was the next game to be released that was built in Titanfall’s world, the Outlands. The story is set in a pretty epic universe in conflict that lends itself well to building additional narratives around it. EA could take the IP to the next level by venturing into cinema. Blizzard’s WarCraft universe has been expanded on for more than 25 years and can be taken as a key example.

Another example is last year’s Arcane, which was released on Netflix. Riot Games ventured into the same territory and — together with French animation studio Fortiche — created a beautifully animated TV show based on its smash hit League of Legends, the most popular MOBA game in history. Season 1 of Arcane profited Netflix about $1B, received a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, and has led to Riot Games acquiring a minority stake in Fortiche Production and the announcement of a second season.

Not only real-time strategy games have been taking this route. Another squad-based shooter, Overwatch, has been using the power of cinematic storytelling even since before its release.

Bonus: Add a Place to Hang Out

It’s not tangible, short-term advice, but it needs to be mentioned: because of the high number of players per match, Battle Royale games have the potential to enable players to grow and strengthen social connections. The free-roam pre-game lobbies (which currently don’t exist in ALM) allow players to have one or even several minutes to fool around while the game adds enough players to the match. Anecdotally, PUBG has achieved this in some markets to an extreme extent; ever since the game was rebranded and republished after being removed from stores for months, many players in India are using the game as a platform to hang out and chat first, and shoot at each other second.

The actual implementation of this doesn’t have to be as ambitious as Fortnite’s Metaverse vision or as random as PUBG’s implementation, but if the goal is to have players interact more with each other (even on mobile, and even though they are not personified as themselves but an ALM character), it could still be interesting to experiment with (pre-game) lobbies within the game world to stimulate social interactions.

Conclusion

ALM is an extremely polished, high-potential competitor in the mobile Battle Royale space. Its main challenge is the already established elite and the more generic take that their games approach the mobile shooter market with. Especially taking into account the competitive disadvantage ALM has to be scaling now and the struggles it faces in building a player base in a post-IDFA-deprecation world, it is more important than ever to offer more than the competitors. While war shooter CoDM adds game modes where its established player base is tasked to eradicate hordes of zombies, ALM is banking and working hard on scaling its prime Battle Royale experience first.

Electronic Arts is a powerful company, but with the amount of consolidation that has been happening in the industry, its biggest competitors are now backed by Activision/Microsoft, Krafton, Sea Ltd, and Tencent. Ambitiously, the teams behind ALM have taken on the challenge and have released a unique multiplayer game with more soul, character, and world-building than all of its competitors combined. This leaves the million-dollar question: is this angle enough to compete and keep ALM differentiating itself enough to keep shining like the bright star it tries to be? Only time will tell.

A big thanks to Niek Tuerlings for writing this essay. If Naavik can be of help as you build or fund games, please reach out.