When Apex Legends launched in February 2019, folks (including me) were initially surprised that developer Respawn’s battle royale didn’t include the satisfying wallrunning seen in Titanfall and Titanfall 2. Now, thanks to a moddable Apex Legends build, we can see that Respawn is 100% right to keep those mechanics out of its battle royale.
Recently, several YouTuber creators have begun using an unofficial, moddable build of Apex Legends to post fun pieces of content. If you jump onto YouTube, you can find plenty of videos of what it might be like to dual wield weapons or have Pathfinder’s tactical ability instantly recharge so that he can swing around World’s Edge like Spider-Man.
However, the video that has been getting traction most recently is from creator Mok3ysnip3r, in which they showcase what it would be like if Titanfall 2’s double jump and wallrunning were in Apex Legends.
The video is only 40 seconds long but that is more than enough time to realize that Respawn is 100% correct in their assessment. There is no way to implement wallrunning into this game and deliver anything resembling a balanced experience. Characters travel too quickly via Titanfall’s wallrunning for it to work in a battle royale setting, especially in Apex Legends where body armor makes each target far more durable than Titanfall 2’s Pilots.
Wallrunning has technically been in Apex Legends already, though only for a limited time–you gained wallrunning abilities when killed and brought back as a Shadow in Shadow Royale, a mode that was a part of October 2020’s Fight or Fright event.
During that event, the topic of including wallrunning in the base Apex Legends reared its head again. Daniel Klein, Apex Legends lead game designer at the time, reiterated that wallrunning would likely never come to the battle royale in a permanent capacity.
“I’d say it’s very unlikely we’d ever put wall running and double jumping on a full Legend,” Klein wrote on Reddit. “We had a lot more leeway with Shadows because they don’t have guns and it’s not important to chase them down (because they respawn when you kill them anyway).”
“When you’re chasing an enemy and lose line of sight on them, you have a mental calculation to make: Given the time since you’ve last seen them, where could they possibly be? There’s a blob shaped possibility space that grows with time. So when you round the same corner two seconds later, you know there isn’t a long list of places they could have gone to; you can quickly check one or two and get a good idea where they must have gone. This allows you to understand the front lines of combat and where danger is likely to come from.”
Gotta agree with all of that. After seeing an Octane double jumping and wallrunning his way through World’s Edge in a matter of seconds, I don’t want that permanently in Apex Legends either.
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