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How Call of Duty Mobile has become better thanks to Apex Legends

Apex Legends' innovations have improved mobile battle royale games

How Call of Duty Mobile has become better thanks to Apex Legends

Call of Duty Mobile might be the best battle royale to become available on mobile devices - and that's an awfully big claim when the likes of PUBG Mobile and Fortnite already have firm places in the mobile space. And yet, COD Mobile feels like the best I've played.

And that just might be that Call of Duty Mobile takes a few cues from my personal favorite battle royale game, Apex Legends. Apex Legends certainly doesn't have a mobile version (at least, not yet…) but its excellent movement and mobility options, combined with interesting maps, the ping system, and excellent gunplay just make it a wonderful BR. And Call of Duty Mobile has learned from Apex Legends in all of the right places.

Here are a few things that Call of Duty Mobile has taken from Apex Legends, and how it improves to battle royale experience.

Revive

One of the big changes is the revive system, and the fact that there is one at all. In the big games like Fortnite and PUBG Mobile, you won't be reviving players once they've been killed, but in Apex Legends and Call of Duty Mobile, it's all possible.

You can collect a players' dog tag in COD Mobile and that can be used to revive them, much the same as Apex Legends' banner system.

It's a good system, and promotes teamwork, assuming players don't leave the game after dying once…

Ping

Ping, and no, not the kind that can make you lag out. The ping system in Apex Legends allows players to highlight equipment, enemies, locations, and much more, giving players a rudimentary language to use without ever using voice chat. It's actually brilliant.

And because it's so brilliant, Fortnite quickly implemented it into their game, and Call of Duty Mobile has now followed suit.

The ability to ping enemy locations and equipment is honestly a Godsend for BR games and is excellent here.

Colour coding

It's simple. Colour code your weapons and attachments to make it clear at a distance how good something is.

Fortnite and Apex Legends both use this system in different ways, and in Call of Duty Mobile it's certainly more akin to the system you see in place in Apex Legends.

This allows you to easily identify the equipment you want, and what might be useful for team members.

Vehicles?

Ah, now we're getting into how the two games differ, and a big one is vehicles.

To be fair, in the latest season of Apex Legends they added a train, which is incredibly exciting for fans. Though it's also nothing like driving around a jeep with a mounted gun on the back.

Though to be fair, Apex Legends has the kind of mobility options that means the map never needs vehicles. Call of Duty Mobile, however, certainly needs traversal options that vehicles provide.

Disconnection rejoin?

God, I wish. If you happen to disconnect from a BR game in Call of Duty Mobile, you can actually rejoin your team if you restart the app. That is incredible and would be welcome for every BR game ever.

Apex Legends, however? Yeah, no, there's no option like that. They probably wouldn't wish to include that, in case people disconnect to get out of tight situations, only to return a minute later.

For Call of Duty Mobile though, with sometimes spotty internet connections, it's welcome.

Mobile?

Oh yeah. Apex Legends is not available on mobile. But Call of Duty Mobile is. Well, there's an obvious winner here, and it's not Apex Legends.

Though, if they want to get to work on that Nintendo Switch version…

Dave Aubrey
Dave Aubrey
Dave is the Guides Editor at Pocket Gamer. Specialises in Nintendo, complains about them for a living.