Apex Legends Hits 50 Million Players Four Times Faster than Fortnite did

Apex Legends might not be the biggest Battle Royale game in the world, but it sure as hell looking to close that gap in a hurry. We know this because just yesterday, CEO of Respawn Entertainment (the developers behind the game) tweeted this hardy little thanks to the community:

Thank you to the 50 million players that have shown up in the first month since Apex Legends launched! You have all made this something special and there's much more to come!

He followed it with a video that included some interesting gameplay stats: there have been 158 million finishers used, people have activated ultimates 1.23 billion times, pinged 31 billion times (this is the kind of data developers keep track of), and respawned 170 million times. They even took the time to make fun of the Mozambique and its meme status within the community.

Now, that’s all well and good that the game is doing well, but what’s really interesting is the time frame. Apex Legends has been around for about a month, which means that it hit 50 million players about four times faster than Fortnite, which had been out for four months before it managed to reach 45 million players.

So yeah. The game is exploding in popularity. The real question, though, is if it can last. The Battle Pass for the game is supposed to release later this month, and that, I feel, will be the first big hurdle for the game. If it’s too expensive, too stingy, or generally feels like a rip-off, that’s probably all it would take for this success to reverse course and have people return to Fortnite, especially since it’s also getting smart pings and a respawn system.

Well EA, you’ve screwed up a lot, but here’s hoping you won’t ruin this. Please.