The official "Apex Legends" website has revealed the official release date for the Nintendo Switch port to be March 9. The port is being handled by popular studio Panic Button, revered for its Switch ports.

Panic Button is known for its highly acclaimed work on porting popular titles such as the "Doom" and "Wolfenstein" games. As expected from this studio, the Switch version of the highly popular battle royale game will feature "smart optimizations" and be fully up to date according to "Apex Legends" Game Director Chad Grenier.

The launch of the now fully portable title puts it four weeks ahead of Season 8.

So to help Switch players make up for the lost time, they will receive 30 free levels off the bat as well as double XP up until March 23. Additionally, this version will feature cross-platform play and full parity with other versions.

"Apex Legends" is already available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, and is planned for upgradability for PS5 and Xbox Seris X/S. However, precise dates for the next-gen compatibility updates remain unknown.

A legendary battle royale

"Apex Legends" was the brainchild of Respawn Entertainment, the maniacs behind the popularly overlooked "Titanfall" series. In fact, their current project is set within the same universe. However, while the former is strictly a PvP Deathmatch, it doesn't feature parkouring foot soldiers summoning giant mechs from space like the latter.

Instead, their current title focuses on a 3-on-3, co-op battle royale scheme featuring gun fanatics with varying backgrounds who shoot it out on human colonized battlefields worlds across the galaxy for that top 3 spots. All of the usual tropes are there; sky diving to arenas, hustling for guns/loot, and a shrinking force field with a nasty burn.

However, "Apex Legends" stands out by pulling in tropes from another sub-genre and that is the heroic shooter. Each Apex comes with a set of abilities--two active types and one passive type--that not only adds an extra layer of strategy but some much-needed personality in an already crowded battle royale genre.

Cue the Fuse

Currently, the "Legends" roster offers a total of sixteen playable characters to choose from.

As part of Season 8, the latest addition to the roster is a guy called Fuse, a demolitionist that looks and talks like he stepped out of a Mad Max film.

Fuse's unique passive allows him to carry an additional fragmentation and can launch these towards enemies with increased range thanks to his weaponized cybernetic arm. That arm also has an active ability tied to it that launches a unique cluster bomb, damaging multiple enemies at once within a small area of effectiveness. Fuse's ultimate ability launches a mortar that can reign down hellfire from the sky and forms a ring of fire around enemy teams.
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