Last week, we reported that data-miners had turned up evidence that Apex Legends may be planning to introduce single and duo squads. Right now, your only option is to play the game as a trio, which seems like the perfect size at the moment but may end up feeling a bit same-y once the novelty has worn off.
Thankfully, then, this week we’ve seen a new bit of data-mining of the game’s files that suggests Respawn may be looking at introducing six, twelve and even twenty-four man squads. If this does prove to be the case, it’ll bring Apex Legends in line with many other battle royale titles, most of which have a variety of team sizes in order to shake things up a bit from match to match. For example, one of the more popular Fortnite modes is the very fun 50v50 mode.
Apex Legends has a ton of interesting support mechanics in it, so increasing the team size would be a nice way to expand on those and perhaps have players in dedicated support roles rather than the combat/support roles we currently see.
If these expanded squad sizes do make the cut, it’ll be interesting to see how they adapt the Smart Comms system. This allows you to communicate with your teammates without having to use voice chat, but I can foresee it sounding a bit chaotic with up to 24 players barking information at one another.
As always with these data-mining reveals, players should bear in mind that they’re not a guarantee that what’s found will make it into the game. Apex Legends has been in development for a long time, after all, and presumably during play-testing and balancing Respawn experimented with many different team sizes in order to find the sweet spot. Still, I’d expect a little more flexibility coming soon, even if just because it’ll make the game more eSports-friendly.