Apex Legends season 14 is off to a roaring start, with new content pushing the FPS game to an all-time high Steam player count of over half a million concurrent players. New character Vantage leads up the charge with her adorable bat companion, Echo, and players have been flocking to try her out on the reworked Kings Canyon map in the battle royale game.
The SteamDB records for Apex Legends show that it reached a peak concurrent player count of 511,676 players on August 10, one day after the launch of Hunted, the game’s fourteenth season. Along with Vantage, the new season also includes a much-anticipated increase to the Apex Legends level cap, as well as some major changes to the Kings Canyon map.
It also brings an end to one of the game’s longest-lasting features, the gold self-revive knockdown shield, which has been removed from the game entirely. This means an end to self-revive in Apex Legends, meaning that you’ll no longer be able to pull out those clutch solo moments after getting yourself back up from an unfortunate knockdown.
This new record concurrent player count puts Apex Legends comfortably into third place on the current Steam active player count chart at the time of writing, behind only Counter-Strike: GO and Dota 2. It also sits above fellow battle royale game PUBG: Battlegrounds in fourth place. It’s important to note that these are only Steam numbers, meaning that the total number of Apex Legends players on PC will be even higher when including numbers from EA’s own Origin platform.
Some users on the game’s subreddit were previously pushing for a “No Apex August” to protest perceived issues with the game, but any hint of this seems to have fallen flat on its face in light of the game’s recent success. Developer Respawn has also pushed to fix many of the most common complaints in recent weeks, such as finally resolving a long-standing issue with Loba’s bracelet not working in certain circumstances.
It’s not all been plain sailing, however – one notable Apex Legends season 14 bug is bamboozling players by swapping out their abilities with those of other Legends. Be sure to check out our Apex Legends characters tier list and Apex Legends weapons tier list to get a headstart on your competition in the multiplayer game if you’re planning to join in with the rest of the playerbase – it certainly seems like a great time to do so.