Apex Legends Solo Mode: practical tips and tactics for winning in Solos

You asked for it, and it arrived (six months later): the Apex Legends Solo Mode is here at last! For a limited time only, at least for the time being, you get to jump into a Solo Mode queue where the fights are faster and the games are much more aggressive than they've ever been. There's a bit of an adjustment that has to take place when moving from Squads to Solos, but our Apex Legends Solo Mode guide will help level out that learning curve with practical tips and tactics to bear in mind during your next Kings Canyon free-for-all.

Apex Legends Solo Mode guide

If you haven't yet given the new Apex Legends Solo Mode a proper spin, you would be forgiven for thinking that the only difference between Solos and Squads is that you're on your own instead of in a squad. That's the core difference, of course, but this change ripples outward to alter various different aspects of how you need to play in order to be successful in Solo Mode.

Let's take a look at the key things you'll need to remember when playing Apex Legends Solos.

• Apex Legends Solo Mode overview - how to play Solo
• Choosing your Legend in Apex Legends Solo Mode
• Where to land in Apex Legends Solo Mode
• Apex Legends Solo tips and tricks

Apex Legends Solo Mode overview - how to play Solo

Apex Legends Solo Mode does exactly what you'd expect: it throws you into a game that is exactly the same as every other Apex Legends match you've ever played: but this time, there are no teammates, there's no communication, there's no sharing out loot. It's just you against 59 other players all battling it out in one giant free-for-all.

Apex Legends has released its new Solo Mode queue as a limited-time mode only (at least for now). The mode is available from the Main Menu from Tuesday 13th August to Tuesday 27th August, so you'd better be quick if you want your fill of Solos before it's taken away.

The new Solo Mode has proven popular enough that you won't need to wait in the queue for long before you're loaded into a game with 59 other free-for-all-ers ready to battle it out in traditional battle royale style. But unless you pay attention to the tips and tricks laid out below, you might not last too long before you're back in the main menu again.

Choosing your Legend in Apex Legends Solo Mode

The first decision you'll need to make is the same decision you'll have made with every other Apex Legends match you've ever played: picking your Legend. With no teammates, you will always be able to pick the Legend you want: but the lack of teammates also has a bearing on which Legends are the most viable options.

Far and away the most popular Legends in the first week of Apex Legends Solo Mode are Pathfinder and Bangalore. These two Legends' abilities allow them to excel on their own, with their lithe, tricky hitboxes and their emphasis on high mobility making them perfect for the highly aggressive environment of Solos.

The next tier of popularity is much more diverse, with a mix of Wraith, Octane, and - perhaps surprisingly to many - Lifeline and Gibraltar. The first two are good picks for much the same reason as Pathfinder and Bangalore: they are small in stature, and very mobility-focused; particularly Octane. Lifeline and Gibraltar you may think of as support-oriented Legends with little place in a Solo Mode, but actually Gibraltar's Fortified, damage-absorbent nature makes him a very tough fighter in 1v1 scenarios; and Lifeline's abilities are all very self-serving just as much as they are useful to a whole team.

The Legends we've seen by far the least are Caustic, Bloodhound, Mirage, and Wattson. While Caustic enjoys the same Fortified Passive as Gibraltar, his Nox Gas Traps are a much more defence- and turtle-oriented ability, and while Gibraltar's abilities are also defensive in nature they can all be used well to win firefights, not just to turtle against them. The same is very true for Wattson, whose fences are ill-suited for the aggression and emphasis on closing gaps to finish fights that you'll find throughout Solos. And Bloodhound and Mirage have always been fringe Legends in terms of popularity, simply because they lack the "staying alive" abilities that are offered by most other Legends. Though I still think a well-timed Bloodhound Ultimate can win you a Solos match or two.

Where to land in Apex Legends Solo Mode

The new Apex Legends Solo Mode has arrived along with the Iron Crown Update (which you can read all about in our Apex Legends Season 4 update/patch notes guide), which added a new named location to Kings Canyon: Gauntlet, located just to the north-west of the ever-popular Skull Town. However, unless you're comfortable dropping very hot, I'd stay away from that location.

That's the thing about deciding where to land in Solos: when you've got 60 players all choosing their own landing spots instead of 20 players choosing landing spots for themselves and their two teammates, everyone ends up much more spread out. The chances of finding a named location all to yourself is much slimmer, so wherever you decide to land you should be looking around to see how much of a fight you need to be prepared for once you land.

That doesn't mean there aren't still hot drop spots where there is a much larger concentration of players. Skull Town, Gauntlet, Bunker, Artillery, and Market are all likely to give you a very action-packed first few minutes if you land there. Your best bet if you want a quieter early-game is to land far away from the first Ring (which appears instantly as you're choosing where to land, so you do know ahead of time). However, this means you have longer to travel and therefore less time to gear up.

That's the tradeoff: a riskier and more packed location where you'll almost certainly find what you need (if you survive), or a quieter start where you can't guarantee you'll be fully equipped by the time the Ring starts to push you into battle.

Apex Legends Solo tips and tricks

Finally, let's finish off our Apex Legends Solo Mode guide with a medley of tips and tactics to keep in the forefront of your mind when you're out there traversing the highs and lows of Kings Canyon on your own.

• There is no downtime. With everyone dropping in a much more spread-out fashion in Apex Legends Solo Mode, the amount of time between encounters and fights is drastically reduced. There really is no downtime here, it's all just tense and action-packed from start to finish. Stay alert and prepared, even while looting, even while healing. Don't let your guard down.
• No revives or respawns. Hand-in-hand with all the nice things about having no teammates (loot is all yours, no one to let down or to let you down) is another big difference to take into consideration: if you're knocked, you're dead. No one is there to revive you or respawn you. Fight start and finish much more quickly, so you'll need to put more emphasis in Solo Mode on keeping out of danger even during firefights.
• Snipers have never been more powerful. In terms of their actual firepower and stats, Snipers have never been stronger; but in Squads their usefulness has always been reduced by the fact that if you down someone at long range, the enemy team usually has more than enough time to revive them. Not so in Solo Mode: Longbows and Krabers are weapons of exceptional power in Apex Legends Solos, even getting into the end-game.
• Heal first, loot second after fights. Another tip in the vein of "it's really easy to die, be careful" - if you win a firefight your top priority should always be to heal. With no revives, you only get the one life; and in when all the loot you find in the early-game is yours and yours alone, you'll generally be fairly well equipped anyway. So always prioritise ducking behind cover and healing up after a fight before you loot, because odds are there's another player waiting in the wings to clean up the mess.

And with that, we've pretty much run out of things to talk about with the new Apex Legends Solo Mode. Hopefully you're now feeling a little more equipped for the changes that you may not have foreseen about the shift from Squads to Solos. Now it's time to gear up and prepare to shoot anything that moves in your bid to be the last Legend standing.