Apex Legends hits all-time player count peak on PC following team deathmatch update, free hero giveaway

As spotted by Kotaku (opens in new tab), Apex Legends surpassed its all-time peak Steam player count on February 15, logging 610,433 concurrent gamers and blowing away its previous high of 510,000 last August. This milestone comes in the midst of a beefy four-year anniversary update (opens in new tab) to the game that added a new class system to organize its heroes, a team deathmatch mode, and free hero giveaways.

The new class system is probably the biggest long-term change to Apex. The preexisting heroes have been organized into team roles in a similar fashion to Overwatch, and the new archetypes confer additional bonuses to their respective heroes. There’s a full breakdown in Apex Legends’ Revelry patch notes (opens in new tab), but the new classes are as follows:

• Assault: More ammo per stack, can access “red bins.” Bangalore, Ash, Fuse, Mad Maggie, Revenant
• Skirmisher: Can reveal care packages. Wraith, Valkyrie, Octane, Horizon, Mirage, Pathfinder
• Recon: Can deploy a survey beacon to show enemy locations. Bloodhound, Crypto, Seer, Vantage
• Controller: Access to “Ring Consoles” that show the Ring’s location. Caustic, Wattson, Rampart, Catalyst
• Support: Crafts banners and can access “blue bins.” Lifeline, Loba, Gibraltar, Newcastle