Former CS:GO pro turned streamer, Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek can finally talk about and play Respawn’s new ‘Apex Legends’ battle royale, having helped in its development for months.
Recognized as one of the finest PC gamers in the world, shroud has taken his talents to a variety of titles after retiring from professional play, and his insight is invaluable to developers – as well as his exposure.
He pulled in over 100,000 concurrent viewers on his first day of streaming the game on February 4, and as he finally got to show off his skills in Apex Legends, he also revealed some of the design insight he had shared with the devs.
One of Counter-Strike’s trademark gameplay features is the use of consistent, predictable recoil patterns. Each weapon has its own specific pattern, which it will replicate exactly every single time it is fired.
Shroud explains that his experience with CS:GO informed one of his suggestions to Respawn, who had originally implemented a more randomized recoil system.
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“The recoil on their weapons was kind of randomized, and I told them ‘you know what would be really cool in this game and you guys should try – having pre-set recoil on every single weapon, like Counter-Strike'”, shroud explains, “They ended up going with that idea, and that’s how the recoil is in this game now.”
So, when a player fires a weapon full-auto, it will produce the exact same recoil pattern every time, allowing players who spend time with the game to master each weapon and its specific pattern.
In Apex Legends, some weapons are much more easily controlled than others, with the more powerful weapons having more punishing recoil which the player must attempt to counter.
To get the upper hand on opponents, check out our full guide on every weapon in Apex Legends, with damage stats, attachments and more.