Apex Legends has just launched season 12, and with it comes a new Legend, Mad Maggie, and a new limited time game mode (LTM), Control.
If you’ve played Domination in Battlefield or Call of Duty, then you’ll be familiar with the basic idea of Control. Players will fight to control three zones. Once under your team’s control, these zones will passively create points. The first team to 1250 points wins.
So how does it play? Let’s take a look at exactly what this new mode is all about.
What’s Special About Control?
Besides the zones, Control differs from its Arena and Battle Royale counter parts in a few distinct ways. Knockdowns become kills and players will respawn back into the action automatically.
For items, each player starts out with infinite medpacks, syringes, and ammo. Shields automatically recover after a short delay, and players will be given a choice of weapons from five preset, rotating loadouts.
Player contributions to their team are tracked through Control’s rating system. Ratings have three tiers: blue, purple, and gold. Kills, assists, capping, and decapping zones all add to your rating. Each time you go up a rating tier, you get a charge of your ultimate and an upgrade to your guns. However, if you are slain then your rating resets back to zero/blue.
To further spice up the game mode, two random events can happen – an event that will increase how many points a zone will generate, or care packages will drop onto the map that will have three red-level guns.
So how does it play?
Control has the same chaotic vibe as a food fight – it’s messy, it’s crazy, and it’s a boatload of fun. Constant respawns keep the action flowing while the rating system strikes a nice balance between encouraging players to be aggressive and surviving for as long as they can. 9v9 means you are never far away from an opponent.
In comparison to the other modes in Apex Legends, each game of Control has a fast and brutal pace to it. Each game starts with a quick fight for zone B because of its central location and how easily defendable it is on both maps. As a result, the opening moments of Control are a race. Legends will scramble toward zone B, employing every movement trick they know to beat their opponents there.
Once the initial struggle for zone B has been determined, then the rest of the game’s insanity starts to unfold. Players hungry for a fight will throw themselves at zone B with reckless abandon, while skirmishes break out across the rest of the map.
Members on both teams may then assault the zone closest to their enemy’s spawn. If successful, this will result in either a lockout (when a team owns all three zones and a countdown to victory starts) or it will stop the enemy from spawning at zone B, hopefully swinging the fight in favor of zone B’s attackers.
The end result is a refreshing, new take on Apex Legends. It’s the perfect way to enjoy the game without any of the stress that comes with the Battle Royale and Arena modes.
This insanity hits a new level on Storm Point where zone B is a massive tower overlooking the rest of the map. Whichever team controls B gets the additional benefit of raining bullets on everybody else in line of sight.
The Future of Control
Currently, Control will be in the game for about three weeks, meaning it will most likely be removed on March 1st.
However, there is a suspicious amount of new content added for just this new game mode alone. Respawn created two new(ish) maps and even commissioned new voice lines for it. It would be a waste to throw all of that effort away in three weeks.
Much like previous LTMs, there is a chance that Control can stick around for the future. A strong indicator for whether a mode will come back is how it’s received by the fans. If there is enough public support then Respawn may either bring this LTM back regularly in the future (like the Winter Express), or add it to the game permanently (like Duos).
Regardless, Apex Legends has struck gold with Control. Whether this game mode returns as an LTM or if Respawn adds it permanently into the game, Control has found a niche for itself. It offers a mess of fun and a perfect way to practice nonstop combat that can’t be replicated in Arenas or Battle Royale. When March 1st finally rolls around, we’ll see what Respawn’s final word is about Control’s future.
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