The Game Awards 2023 was as weird and wonderful as we anticipated, treating us to more Chris Judge, Sam Lake’s impeccable dancing, and… an Apex Legends FF7 collab? While this was one we definitely didn’t have on our bingo cards, we’re equally excited and apprehensive about what Respawn and Square-Enix are cooking up for Apex Legends players on PS5, Xbox, and more. Thanks to a new leak, we may now know a lot more about who’s in line to get shiny new Apex Legends FF7 skins.
As shared by ‘HYPERMYST’ over on Twitter, Crypto, Horizon, and Wraith – the three characters initially shown in the Apex Legends FF7 trailer – will be joined by Newcastle, Valkyrie, and Wattson in the Iconic department, and Lifeline will receive an Epic skin. While the leaker doesn’t specify which FF7 characters the Iconic line will be emulating in-game, we can make some educated guesses in Barret and Yuffie for Newcastle and Valkyrie respectively.
Wattson, however, is a tricker legend to guess. Based on the remaining party members we could easily see her getting a cute Cait Sith-themed skin, complete with cape and crown. However, we certainly wouldn’t complain if she were to be Zack-ified considering his resurgence in the remake trilogy. Of course, the developer duo could go completely left of field and turn her into Sephiroth, but thematically Cait Sith makes the most sense considering his robotic companion.
Alongside the aforementioned legend skins, HYPERMYST says that the Nemesis, Mastiff, and CAR SMG will also be getting Epic skins. We expect these to be based on Barret’s arm-ory of weapons, which include the Big Bertha, EKG Cannon, Gattling Gun, and Light Machine Gun. Of course, these are only his FF7 Remake guns and this is an FF7 Rebirth event, so we could be treated to a sneak peek at what Barret’s going to be packing when the FF7 Rebirth release date finally arrives.
While we’re yet to see what the finalized skins will look like for these characters should the leak materialize, we’re already excited by the collaborative effort between the maker of one of the best FPS games and that of one of the best RPG games around – both Apex and FF7R hold spots on our best games list, so it’s perhaps a given that we’re readying our wallets for January 9.
The Apex Legends FF7 event isn’t the first high-profile collaboration we’ve seen from Respawn this year. In early November the studio launched a special LTM mode and skin line in conjunction with musical maestro Post Malone, seemingly kicking off its attempt to bring mainstream clout to the game as both Call of Duty and Fortnite have done with great success in the past.
However, while it’s great to see pop culture permeate another of the best battle royale games, Apex has continued to come under scrutiny from players as of late – Respawn recently reaffirmed that it won’t be moving to a new engine to combat audio issues as part of a recent Apex Legends Reddit AMA. As such, keep your wits about you when climbing the Apex Legends ranks, lest you find yourself with a Buster Sword sticking out of you.