The battle royale game Apex Legends will be getting its own comic book mini-series, Apex Legends: Overtime, published between developer Respawn Entertainment and publisher Dark Horse Comics. The action-adventure comic book will have its own four-issue miniseries. This will be the first time Apex Legends has ever been in physical comic book form.
Apex Legends was developed and released by Respawn Entertainment with the first season beginning in March 2019. The game still receives regular updates to this day. The game is a free-to-play battle royale shooter available across multiple consoles and phones with crossplay as of Season 6. Currently, Apex Legends is on Season 8 and continues to freely update to this day. Developer Respawn Entertainment is also behind Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the Titanfall series.
The mini-series will be an expansion of the story established in the Apex Legends game. The solicit text for the issue introduces the conflict between Legends (which are the assortment of characters people can choose to play as in-game) and groups of mad scientists, assassins, and the Syndicate who want to fix the outcomes of matches (kind of ironic considering the recent ban of over 700 cheaters in the actual game). The writer for the series is Jesse Stern with penciler Neil Edwards, inker Keith Champagne, and cover artist Bengal.
ComicBook.com points out that this will be the first time a comic book about Apex Legends will be available physically, referencing that digital comic book pages are available in-game to show conversations between characters and inform their relationships. Respawn Entertainment has also worked with Dark Horse Comics on the Apex Legends: Pathfinder's Quest hardcover lore book that is over 190 pages, which will be released in comic book stores on May 12, 2021. The universe is expanded upon in this book from the point-of-view of the robot Legend Pathfinder, who is interviewing Legends in search of his creator.
Apex Legends is often compared to games like Overwatch, which also has its own tie-in comic book that it had in-game events around. But unlike Overwatch, which requires players to at least make a one-time purchase of the base game, Apex Legends can be started completely free. It will be interesting to see if this mini-series just caters to fans or will serve as a gateway for newcomers to latch onto not just a comic book mini-series but also try out another free-to-play game. Regardless, longtime veterans of the game and newbies can pick up the first issue of Apex Legends: Overtime in comic book stores on June 2, 2021.
Source: ComicBook.com