Apex Legends is on the market, but an important feature is missing: cross progression

Apex Legends it is the latest large multiplatform switch port. After years of availability on Xbox, PlayStation and PC, EA finally brought the Battle Royale shooter to Nintendo’s handheld console, adding a new wave of players to the mix and a new on-the-go option for existing ones Apex Legends fans. But there is a glaring problem with the switch port: at the moment, there is no cross progression, making the switch port effectively a non-starter for dedicated players.

At launch, the new Nintendo Switch version of Apex Legends offers multiplatform gameplay – meaning you can play with and against players on Xbox, PlayStation and PC, in addition to other Switch players. But any progress or purchase that players have made on these other platforms will not be maintained. Effectively, Apex Legends Switch players are starting from scratch.

Despite the “Season 8” brand that covers Apex Legends, there is no continuity for players in the Switch version – so much so that players need to repeat the tutorial before they can actually enter a full game.

In an interview with Nintendo Life, Chad Grenier (Respawn game director for Apex Legends) said that the cross-progression is planned for the future, but with the proviso that “we are far from being able to offer this”.

Grenier explains that there is a mixture of problems that prevent Respawn from offering cross-progression, with contractual, legal and technical problems that need to be solved. “It is a complex challenge of multiple existing accounts for several users that we have to solve or merge, there are legal and contractual things to browse with purchases on other platforms and have these transfers and also some technical challenges.”

Apex Legends it is by no means the first mainstream game to encounter this problem. Unfortunately, the lack of cross-progression is more common than in most cross-platform games, both on Switch and on other platforms.

Overwatch, for example, has struggled with the lack of cross-platform progression and gameplay for years, despite the emphasis that Blizzard places on cosmetic content unlockings.

To control has been ported to multiple platforms since its launch, including Amazon’s Luna, a cloud-based version for the Nintendo Switch and a next-generation version for PS5 and Xbox One. To control on a PS4, this is where your save gets stuck forever, even if you want to try streaming from an Internet service or playing with more sophisticated graphics on a high-end console.

Obviously, there are real technical and legal issues here. OverwatchThe company’s skins are strongly linked to the economy of loot boxes, which are all purchased at specific platform stores, which can complicate things. To controlThe lack of next generation bailouts is linked to updates to the game engine that prevented Remedy from offering continuity to existing players.

But there are also plenty of games in 2021 that show that a better way is possible. Fifteen days and Rocket turns on are the gold standard here: just sign up for free Epic games on the platform of your choice and all your stuff will be waiting for you. You can play with friends on any platform (well, except iOS), from any platform, with all your skins, emotes, items and unlocks.

And even recent Ubisoft games have added cross-play and cross-progress through Ubisoft Connect, allowing players to start playing RPGs like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on one system and continue on another.

In 2021, the offer of cross-progression and cross-game is increasingly becoming a table bet for the main games. With massive titles that can take dozens, if not hundreds of hours of players’ time, blocking progression to a single console or platform just doesn’t make sense.

And this is doubly true for free games like Apex Legends, who live or die with the strength and size of their multiplayer community and the money they can earn by selling cosmetic items. When downloading the game is free on any platform, it is critical that the time and money that players invest to obtain these digital rewards is consistent across those platforms, because the collection of these items is the main reward structure for these games.

Bungie discovered this a while ago, when the transition took place Destiny 2 for a free-to-play title – now allows players to synchronize their game items with any platform they are playing on (even if Bungie is still working on multiplatform gameplay).

The goal of putting a game like Apex Legends on the Switch is to offer players another way to play the game. Sure, it can attract some new players, but for many others it is a way to spend even more time with a game they already love. But by blocking things like hero characters or items that players have meticulously unlocked over time or money on a single platform, the game is still stuck in an outdated model of game design.

Players have a finite amount of time. And why would you open Apex Legends to unlock all of your old equipment again when you pick up the switch, when you could make progress on your Fifteen days battle pass – a much more substantial unlock that is not tied to a single system – instead?