It’s no wonder Apex Legends needed only a couple of years to become one of the top battle royale games on the market.

The development team behind it, Respawn Entertainment, are veterans of action multiplayer games — the studio was founded by the co-founders of Infinity Ward, who created the Call of Duty franchise.

These days, Apex Legends continues to evolve and grow in plenty of exciting ways; Respawn is constantly adding new gameplay elements and content to keep things fresh for as long as possible. The fast-paced nature of Apex’s matches isn’t likely to bore you any time soon, but what if you want to shake things up a bit by trying out another title?

We’ve compiled a list of the best games similar to Apex Legends right here to answer that very question, so let’s dive into it! Here are the best 7 games like Apex Legends.

Fortnite

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Today, it’s almost impossible to imagine that Fortnite, the biggest battle royale sensation on the planet, was once envisioned as something completely different. Back when Epic Games first started working on it, Fortnite was much more of a survival co-op game, focused on resource gathering and construction of defensive buildings.

Yep, it was far more of a PvE experience — and that design was subsequently used to create a spin-off, Fortnite Save The World. But the main game eventually became a fiercely fun battle royale, as the genre started gaining steam in 2017.

So, how did Fortnite set itself apart in the now increasingly crowded genre of battle royale games? First of all, it ditches the traditionally bland vibe of a military simulation (Call of Duty, we’re looking at you) for a colorful, vivid aesthetic that makes the whole experience far more energetic.

Secondly, when Fortnite ditched its original premise, it kept a lot of its innovative freeform building system. And while some subsequent battle royales would try to copy it and implement something similar, no one managed to quite replicate Fortnite’s intuitive construction interface.

Apart from that, the game provides something that’s now considered standard fare in the genre: a maximum of 100 players whisked away to a large, but a progressively shrinking map. They collect gear and weapons wherever they can and fight each other with a simple goal: to be the last player (or team) standing.

It still holds up, and it’s still free — plus, there’s an awesome mobile version of the game as well. If you want to play more games like Apex Legends, this is a must-play.

Overwatch

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The battle royale genre definitely breathed new life into the FPS and TPS multiplayer scenes. The world of online multiplayer was made up of mostly MMORPGs for a long time, and the multiplayer shooter communities were relatively smaller and constrained to only a couple of franchises.

However, as online shooters exploded in the mid-2010s, all of the major publishers tried to get a piece of the pie. Some have fared better than others, but Blizzard Entertainment certainly managed to come out ahead of the curve with Overwatch.

Instead of dipping their toes in the endless pool of battle royale games, Blizzard opted for a shooter that’s more reminiscent of the MOBA genre, which famously spawned as the DotA mod for Blizzard’s Warcraft 3.

After over six years and plenty of awards, Overwatch has managed to evolve into a top-notch multiplayer shooter; a dizzying combination of unique characters, a stunningly recognizable art style, and endlessly compelling action.

During all of that time, the core gameplay of Overwatch remains practically untouched. It centers around controlling key points on the map or seeing a payload safely from one end of the map to the other, while battling the enemy team.

The setup doesn’t seem particularly original on paper, but the player characters are the core of what makes Overwatch original — and what makes it similar to MOBA games. You can choose from 32 different heroes, each of which falls into three distinct roles: Damage, Tank, and Support.

All of them are unique, and beautifully designed, and they play against each other in all kinds of unique ways. This is one of the best shooter games on Switch and other platforms by a mile, and fans of games like Apex Legends are sure to love it.

Call of Duty: Warzone

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Activision’s Call of Duty series spent years, if not decades, on the throne of FPS multiplayer games. The main series of games, developed by Infinity Ward, and the spin-offs created by Treyarch, all managed to keep players glued to their screens since the early days of Call of Duty 2.

However, the battle royale revolution suddenly upended Activision’s world, and threatened to end its dominance over the multiplayer shooter scene. The way forward was clear: Infinity Ward would have to come up with its own battle royale game.

Fast forward to 2020, and Call of Duty: Warzone would come out guns blazing. Despite being the most recent entry to the club, it quickly climbed to the top of the ladder. And sure, it borrowed plenty of design choices from its competition, but Warzone also implemented a bunch of great features that made it many people’s favorite map-shrinking shooter.

For instance, unlike many of its peers, Warzone doesn’t make looting much of a fuss. You won’t find yourself fiddling with endless ammo caches and types, attachments, and weapons, all in an effort to min-max your way to victory with equipment.

Forget about all of that — your Warzone character doesn’t have a huge backpack filled with loot. Weapons mostly have pre-set attachments, and apart from a couple of armor plates, you pretty much won’t use anything else.

All of this ensures that you spend more time shooting at your enemies than staring at inventory screens — which is a great thing in our book. Check out our list of more games like Call of Duty if you want more games with this specific feel.

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)

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There’s no way we could come up with a list of the top games like Apex Legends without including the one where it all began: Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG — simultaneously winning the First Battle Royale and Worst Named Game Ever awards.

The premise of PUBG is, in today’s terms, a classic: up to 100 players land on an island filled with gear and vaguely East European scenery. The last one standing wins.

Brendan Greene, the now ironically famous Playerunknown, experimented with the genre by creating mods for DayZ and ArmA 3, before branching out and making his own game out of PUBG on the Unreal 4 engine.

While DayZ laid the groundwork for the genre wits its methodical survival gameplay, and the ArmA series provided the insanely large maps, Greene was the first person to combine it all, streamline the survival elements to the point of removal, get rid of the DayZ zombies, and simply pit the players against each other in a much more fast-paced game.

Even though PUBG isn’t the most popular battle royale game these days, it’s still quite active and definitely worth your time. Describing the difference between it and Fortnite or Apex Legends is like describing the difference between Superman and Iron Man.

Sure, Iron Man is cool and quirky — but Superman was the first superhero who laid the groundwork for everyone else. And that’s exactly what PUBG did for the battle royale genre. If you enjoy games like Apex Legends, you’ll love this game too.

Minecraft

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Sure, Minecraft might not be the purest battle royale game out there — but you can’t say that it isn’t one either.

At this point, Minecraft really needs no introduction. After more than a decade on the throne of multiplayer games, it’s really become a genre unto itself. And it shows no signs of slowing down, with a player base that is steadily increasing in numbers still.

Sometimes described as the digital LEGOs for the Gen Z generation, Minecraft offers a wholly unique experience. It has no cutscenes, no characters, no story, and graphics that work on everything from a Raspberry Pi to a Playstation 5.

It’s the game that spawned the entire survival genre that most players know and love today. The premise is simple: you land in a random spot on an endless, procedurally generated world — and your only task is to survive.

Everything else, and how you do it, is on you. Oh, and there’s one catch: everything consists of fully destructible blocks, which you can destroy, gather, and re-arrange to your heart’s desire. Just make sure to be in a safe spot before nightfall; that’s when the evil creatures appear.

And while all of that is a fun enough experience in singleplayer, the online multiplayer mode is where Minecraft truly shines. At one point, a Minecraft server had 100,000 players on at the same time — though a few dozen or a hundred players is more of an average case.

All of you can work together, or against each other, in any way you choose. People have built functioning societies in Minecraft, and countless mechanical (and even digital) in-game contraptions.

While this may not be the most obvious pick for games like Apex Legends, it does offer exceptional battle royale experiences through multiplayer servers, as well as unique survival and looting gameplay too. It’s worth checking out if you haven’t already.

Destiny 2

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For years, most multiplayer game developers made the choice between creating an MMORPG and creating a multiplayer shooter. The folks at Bungie (of Halo fame) decided they could simply do both, and created an entirely new genre in the process.

Destiny 2 is an MMOFPS, but with plenty of RPG-ish features, such as a focus on storytelling, quest-like missions, and loot-based progression.

The sci-fi setting and the shooting mechanics are quite reminiscent of Bungie’s Halo games. However, the world-building, inventory, and storytelling are much more similar to something like World of Warcraft — as is its focus on social play.

So, how does all of this work in practice? Destiny 2 sees you creating a player avatar and choose from one of the three classes: Titan, Hunter, and Warlock. As you might expect, each of them comes with a unique set of combat and movement abilities, bringing a unique perspective to the game, as well as ample replayability.

When you’re done with the character creation portion of the game, you’re immediately thrust into the epic sci-fi saga that’s surprisingly original compared to Halo’s somewhat bland story. After the initial tutorial section, you can pretty much do whatever you want — from the PvP multiplayer modes to the sprawling PvE story content.

Whichever you choose to dabble in first, your character will slowly grow in terms of prestige and power, allowing you to unlock progressively more powerful weaponry and other items.

Oh, and if all of this wasn’t enough to get you to play — while the game had a price tag upon its initial release, it’s now free-to-play. Since 2019, you can access the base campaign of the game for free — along with the Warmind and Curse of Osiris DLC expansions. It’s one of the most exciting loot games on Steam.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

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Speaking of free-to-play multiplayer shooters, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive definitely deserves a spot on the list. It’s the latest in a long line of insanely popular multiplayer FPS games developed by Valve, and if you like games like Apex Legends, you’ll love it.

The game came out ages ago, and though it’s increasingly showing its age in terms of graphics, it’s still as popular as ever. The fast-paced, simple nature of the game makes it quite simple to pick up, and proceed to then get hooked for hours.

Those are just some of the reasons why the core gameplay loop, despite remaining virtually unchanged since the first series entry in 1999, remains one of the most popular multiplayer games.

The whole game revolves around the conflict of two opposing teams: the Counter-Terrorists and the Terrorists, who strive to eliminate each other while completing various objectives — like planting (or defusing) a bomb, securing a location, and capturing or rescuing hostages.

It’s still as fun as ever, and the learning curve is pretty low, so it’s an instant recommendation.