Everything You Need To Know About The Apex Legends Battle Pass
When Respawn suddenly released Apex Legends in February, it took the world by storm. Despite the lack of pre-release marketing or hype, the game became wildly successful. Within a month of release, Respawn reported that 50 million players had played the game across all platforms. So it's no surprise that the folks behind the hottest new battle royale want to continue capitalizing on it.
In a practice made popular by Epic Games' Fortnite, Apex Legends adopted the Battle Pass. Considering both PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Call of Duty Black Ops 4's Blackout mode started something similar, it was only a matter of time before Respawn would do it as well. If you buy the Battle Pass, you'll get access to a variety of cosmetic rewards throughout the season. And if you don't buy it, there are still some rewards in store for you.
Join us as we recount everything you'll need to know about the very first Battle Pass in Apex Legends.
The Wild Frontier
Apex Legends kicked off its first season on March 19, offering both a Battle Pass and a new character on day one. This season, called Wild Frontier, stands as the first of many to come. Respawn outlined the game's road map pretty soon after it launched on Feb. 4. This season runs until June, at which point a new one will take its place. The plan repeats in September and December, meaning that each season will last roughly three months.
The season's title reflects the game's current state especially well. Octane, the newest character on the block, has an affinity for daring, high-risk stunts. He perfectly represents this brave, wild frontier that Apex Legends is exploring. The game is still in its infancy, considering it's only a little more than a month old. Yet, despite its youth, it leaves behind a blazing trail into its unknown future. These upcoming seasons and their corresponding Battle Passes will shape how well the game can build and retain its audience. As we all know, an engaged audience determines the success of any online free-to-play game.
How does it work?
If you've played a season of Fortnite before, you'll likely be pretty familiar with how Apex Legends will handle things. Your account will have a new statistic added to it: your Battle Pass level. Unlike Fortnite, however, you don't need to do any specific challenges to level it up. Just keep playing Apex Legends. You'll earn Battle Pass Points, the same way you earn normal XP. In total, you can go up to level 100, which nets you all the season's goodies.
Each time it levels up, you earn a new reward. EA's website details what you'll get with each level. When you break the weapon skins down, 20 of them are rare tier, one is epic, and another one is legendary. That legendary skin, for the Havoc, is the the very last thing you unlock. Three rare character skins accompany the Battle Pass, and they're for Lifeline, Mirage, and Wraith. They unlock right at level 1, the moment you boot up the game. The rest of prizes comprise of various stat trackers, intro quips, banner frames, and Apex Packs.
If you want to grind a little faster, switch up the Legend you're playing as. Each Legend gets double their survival time XP added to their Battle Pass Points as a bonus, but this only works up to 25,000 extra points per character per week. So once you get 25,000 bonus points with one character, switch to another to continue earning more.
Octane has nothing to do with it
You've probably noticed that to commemorate the launch of Wild Frontier, we got the Battle Pass and Octane at the same time. But keep in mind, spending money on the Battle Pass has no effect on your ability to play Octane. At the same time, spending 12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins on Octane will not unlock any extra rewards on the Battle Pass.
You can unlock a themed skin unique to Wild Frontier for Octane. However, you don't even need the Battle Pass to gain access to it. At the end of the day, if you're only interested in the Battle Pass and its rewards, you don't really need to worry about the game's new speed demon. Just buy the pass and earn as much XP as you can before the season ends in June.
It can pay for future passes
On launch, the Battle Pass for Apex Legends costs 950 Apex Coins. If you don't have any stashed in your account, the cheapest option for you comes at the $10 price point. That nets you 1,000 Apex Coins, just enough to purchase the Battle Pass. However, if you're worried about reaching Level 100 by the time June rolls around, Respawn offers a solution for you.
If you want to save yourself some time or get a head start on the season, you can purchase the Battle Pass Bundle. This runs for 2,800 Apex Coins and bumps you up by 25 levels, effectively netting you one-fourth of all the rewards. Unfortunately, the premium currency options don't have a clean way of offering you 2,800 coins. You can spend $30 to get 3,150 coins in two separate transactions. Alternatively, if you know you want to buy other things from the in-game store, you could spend $40 to get 4,350 Apex Coins.
There's a long-term financial silver lining to this Battle Pass. Every few levels, the pass doles out some Apex Coins, and if you can hit level 97, you'll earn 1,000 coins. Assuming you can put all the time and effort into playing Apex Legends over the next three months, the pass pays for itself. Or to put it another way, you can use that 1,000 coins to pay for the next pass, assuming it costs a similar number of coins.
You can still earn rewards without it
If you don't want to shell out for the Battle Pass, that's perfectly understandable. Some gamers don't care as much for cosmetics, while others may not be impressed with the cosmetics Apex Legends offers. Or maybe you'd rather only spend your money on Octane, which is fine. You can still earn some rewards without the Battle Pass.
For every even-numbered pass level you reach up to Level 48, you'll earn a small cosmetic reward. Of course, it doesn't compare to the sheer volume of prizes in the paid Battle Pass, but it's better than nothing. At Levels 2, 12, 24, 34, and 46, you'll earn an Apex Pack. At Level 48, you'll unlock the Messenger skin for Octane.
For the rest of the even-numbered levels, you'll earn stat trackers for every character. The first set of stat trackers count the number of Season 1 wins you have with each Legend. The other half of them display how much damage you did in Season 1 with a character. After pass level 48, you won't earn anything without the paid Battle Pass. But you should know, if you buy the pass later into the season, you'll retroactively earn the rewards you were supposed to from the start.
But is it worth it?
Thanks to the Apex Legends community on Reddit, we have an idea of how much the cosmetics in the Battle Pass would cost a la carte. Although the methods used to calculate the hypothetical cost of some of the skins can be seen as dubious, the final result racks up to nearly 7,800 Apex Coins. To put things in perspective, $60 nets you 6,700 coins, and the next step up sits at $100, earning you 11,500 coins. All of a sudden, that 950 coins for the Battle Pass doesn't seem so bad.
But at this point, it becomes a personal decision between money spent and time saved. Furthermore, you'll have to decide if those cosmetics are even worth the money and grind. Some folks on Reddit think the rewards in this Battle Pass are unworthy of all the time and effort. In various threads on the forum, people expressed that despite their love of Apex Legends, the pass feels underwhelming.