Set on an enormous map littered with squads of two or three, Apex Legends feels like a battle royale game made for people who don’t typically enjoy the genre. The only difference is that you can play as one of 13 legends, each with its own unique abilities.

Rather than create a full sequel, the studio instead developed the free-to-play Apex Legends, a battle royale game cut from the same cloth as Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0. It has been quite a few years since Respawn Entertainment launched the excellent Titanfall 2, a full-priced multiplayer shooter that mixed brilliant on-foot gunplay with hulking, walking tanks that delivered deadly firepower. Even when you get blindsided, you’ll be inspired to use portals in a new way on your next try. The weapons are satisfying, movement tight, aiming precise, and it all just feels so fair. If you’re smart enough, you can get the drop on your enemy, mow them down, and escape back to safety when a direct engagement would’ve ended with you biting the dust.

Positioning is always a key factor in FPS games, but this new level of dimension and strategy that portals bring to the genre makes tactics even more important than quick reflexes. While most shooter experiences will live or die based on how fast you can nail a headshot, Splitgate evens the playing field a bit with the portal mechanic. Portals can only be placed on specific surfaces, so you can’t spam them anywhere to get yourself out of a bad situation. That concept alone would make this game worth a look, but once you actually feel how good this game is to play, you’ll stick around for match after match. This is a fast-paced, arena-based shooter where you and everyone else can create portals to flank, reposition, and zip around the map. Splitgateadvertises itself as “Halo meets Portal,” and that’s easily the best way to describe the game.

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