Why Apex Legends is Removing Solos

Ever since the game first came way back in the day, players have been clamoring for the devs to introduce solos to the game. 

Good players were sick of having to carry their teammates, often resulting in them winning the game three on one (don’t worry, we see you,) and weaker players were sick of the toxicity coming from their teammates. 

Solos offered a solution for both parties and worked exceptionally well. Despite the focus on team play and Legend synergy, solos were a hit, and everybody rejoiced, galloping into the sunset to live happily ever after. 

Except no. This is Esports, and there are no happy endings. 

Despite adding duos into the game as a permanent playlist, the developers removed solos. This left trios, and duos exclusively. Even with players calling for the reintroduction of solos, and even a four-player squads option, Respawn has not budged. 

This is their prerogative as the game devs, sure, even though it is pushing people away from their game and into the arms of the competition. Especially since Warzone came out, and even more so now that Valorant is taking over the battle royal landscape. 

However, it’s the reason that one developer has given on Twitter that has really rubbed people up the wrong way. 

Responding to calls to add solos back in from the pro player “PVPX” off of Cloud 9, Josh Medina claimed, “we’ve said it before, but solos aren’t healthy for the game.”

After PVPX followed that up asking what data led them to believe that solos weren’t good for the game, even though the entire community was enjoying it, Medina went on to say “The data we gather is key and you can’t exclusively rely on Reddit and Twitter as data points lol.” 

Not only is this an ambiguous excuse, but it also comes off as very condescending. Claiming that the two epicenters for community interaction around Apex Legends are not good points of reference for what people enjoy. 

Even if the developer’s data is more valuable, it is mind-boggling as to why solos aren’t added back in to appease the masses. It’s doubtful that it puts too much of a strain on the servers, although it might because there would be many more individual games at one time, but surely it’s possible. 

Either way, it doesn’t look like solos are going to be coming back and sticking around any time soon, which is a shame because Apex legends was the first BR game to offer true first-person shooter gameplay, and even looked to be a Fortnite killer at one point. Since then, it has become a shell of its past and fallen into obscurity. 

That fall is going to go even more profound now that everybody is focusing on Call of Duty Warzone, and very soon Valorant is going to go public, and Apex legends is going to have to kiss its last remaining player base goodbye. 

Hopefully, Respawn has a strategy in mind to combat this, but with the stance it’s taken on solos, it’s doubtful.