The free-to-play battle royale-hero shooter game Apex Legends, developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, features a diverse cast of playable characters known as Legends. Apex Legends is set in the same science fiction universe as Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall series, with several characters from the Titanfall series appearing either as minor characters or playable Legends.
The game launched with 8 characters, with at least 16 more added in each subsequent new season post-release. A match starts with each player selecting from one of the available hero characters for a bloodsport competition known as the Apex Games, which operates in an area called The Outlands. The games involve combatants entering an arena on the island and battling each other in squads of three. The victors among the contestants of the Games or "Legends" are known as "Apex Champions".
While each of the game's characters have their own unique abilities and play styles, they are broadly divided into five role classifications: Assault, Skimisher, Recon, Support and Controller. Each character comes with a passive ability, a tactical ability and an ultimate ability. Season 16 implemented a new system that emphasizes new class-specific perks to add a new layer of strategy to this shooter, with each of the five classes having a unique perk attributed to it.
The game's cast of Legends is notable for its diverse inclusion of different cultural, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation identities. The characters have an overall positive response from critics and academic publications.