'Apex Legends' most popular characters have been revealed

Earlier this week Respawn Entertainment asked players to vote on what they thought was the most popular Apex Legends character was (by pick rate), before revealing the official ranking a day later.

The TitanFall blog revealed the top five on November 27. Wraith sits at the top of the picks, followed by Blooodhound and newcomer Horizon. Octane surprised fans given his current poor state in the game, and season one stalwart Lifeline fills out the final slot.

The correct order is:

1. Wraith
2. Bloodhound
3. Horizon
4. Octane
5. Lifeline pic.twitter.com/fhDYoXQBUw

— Apex Legends News (@TitanfallBlog) November 27, 2020

Legends rise and fall in popularity due to the current shape of the season meta, where buffs and nerfs lie across the characters, and also due to overall popularity of characters with fans. After an initial burst of popularity for new characters, usage tends to settle into specific trends each season.

Respawn Developer Daniel Klein took to The Third Party: An Apex Legends Podcast to outline the five most popular legends. Whilst fans may not have expected Octane to appear in the top five, he reasoned that people like to play him due to his speedy playstyle.

Klein also noted that Loba is currently seeing a rise in popularity, getting more usage from players overall, and a higher win rate thanks to a few recent buffs to the Legend.

Apex Legends has been under some criticism recently thanks to updates being paced quite slowly, though director Chad Grenier has spoken about his refusal to rely on crunch, saying “We […] refuse to crunch the team, so we’ll probably be slower at making content than if we worked 15 hour days but that’s just not something we’re willing to do.”