‘Apex Legends’: New thief Loba pursues robotic killer in sci-fi plot

Here’s an alternate take on the cyborg-human struggle of “Westworld” Season 3: engineering company Hammond Robotics collaborated with the mercenary Syndicate to create mass-manufactured killing machine Revenant, once human but now downloadable into an armory’s worth of metallic skeletons.

Horrified upon learning his true nature, Revenant set about wiping out anyone connected to Hammond; now he has a hunter of his own, Loba Andrade, a socialite and skillful thief, orphaned at Revenant’s hand some 25 years ago and now hellbent on erasing him from existence.

In the world of “Apex Legends”, Loba is the latest playable character added to the console and computer battle royale game, her entrance portrayed through a short cinematic trailer ahead of May 12’s Season 5.

The trailer reveals that this new character is adept with firearms and a high-tech staff intended for close-quarters combat.

She will be able to teleport by means of a throwing disc, and datamined information indicates that, in keeping with her secret identity as a skilled thief, Loba can detect, see and steal nearby loot, depending on the context.

An animated short released last week told Loba’s origin story while dialogue from the cinematic seems to indicate that she’s an Iberian-language speaker, possibly Portuguese (or, perhaps, Space Portuguese).

Meanwhile, linking Loba to Revenant’s presence at the Apex Games suggests that we shouldn’t merely expect map changes from one season to another, but also permutations in terms of character relationships and motivations.

“Apex Legends” launched in February 2019, a new competitor in the Battle Royale genre from Respawn Entertainment, the experienced studio behind the “Titanfall” franchise (and, later in the year, “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order”).

It joined a genre already populated by “Fortnite” and “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” (aka “PUBG”), both of which are also available not only on console and computer but also mobile.

The “Call of Duty” franchise rejoined the fray, after 2018’s “Black Ops 4”, through the free “Call of Duty: Warzone” in March 2020 which, like “Apex Legends”, is distributed across PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC. RGA

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