Apex Legends, Legend Selection Case Study
Apex Legends, created by Respawn Entertainment, is a first person shooter battle royale game where teams of three compete to be the last team standing. With over 8 million players weekly, Apex Legends is an overwhelming success however, I believe there are improvements that can be made to the player experience. In this project, I critiqued the Apex Legends game client and presented a new quality of life feature.
Image from Respawn Entertainment and The Mill
CHALLENGE
When players queue up for the game, they are taken to the Legend Selection where they pick a legend to play or get a random one. This current method has the possibility to make players use a legend they don’t want or don’t know how to play. I wanted to use my skills as a designer and a dedicated Apex Legends player to explore ways to improve the player experience.
After reviewing community feedback and conducting guerilla interviews, players’ main desire is that they can play the Legend they want to play. Using my experience as a player and designer, I listed problems in the client:
Looking at a Legend skin resets the selected Legend
Legend’s skills are not visually represented in the client
Comments taken from the Apex Legends Subreddit
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
I compiled Apex Legends artwork and gaming client interfaces that I wanted to critique and take inspiration from.
Images from Apex Legends, Valorant, Overwatch and Ollie Hoff
I put together a list of questions to learn more about players’ habits and discovered that many are not solely focused on the game while in queue.
SURVEYING PLAYERS
I created a userflow of the steps taken to choose a Legend and I can understand why it might be frustrating for players that don’t get their desired Legends.
USERFLOW ANALYSIS
After looking at inspiration and surveying players, I created sketches, wireframes and digital layouts of the Apex Legends client.
CLIENT INTERFACE INTERACTIONS
HOME PAGE
The new Home Page features buttons that show a player’s Secondary and Tertiary chosen Legends while adhering to the client’s hierarchical rules.
LEGEND TAB
This new design has visual clues that show players which Legends they have chosen.
INDIVIDUAL LEGEND TAB
The new layout of an individual Legend includes videos that show off abilities and an area where players can make the Legend a Primary, Secondary or Tertiary pick.
LEGEND SELECT
The new design of the Legend Selection screen gives players more control by:
Highlighting teammates’ Primary Legend
Showing players their Secondary and Tertiary Legends
Allowing players to click on a Legend that isn’t a preset one
COMMUNITY FEEDBACK
I posted my design on the Apex Legends subreddit and was excited with the reaction from the community.
3,300+ upvotes,
20 awards,
160+ comments on Reddit
Even thought not everyone liked with my designed feature, I’m glad I was able to get the community talking about game design and other features that will improve Apex Legends.
Comments taken my post on the Apex Legends Subreddit
While working on this Apex Legends passion project, I made sure to incorporate my learnings from my past case studies. This project allowed me to get more practice designing within systems, staying on brand, and refining my hard skills. I absolutely love Apex Legends and I had a memorable time learning and creating a concept for a game I enjoy playing.