Apex Legends might be coming to China

EA's hit battle royale game is topping Fortnite and PUBG on Twitch, and now Tencent is reportedly trying to bring it to China

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Apex Legends differs from PUBG and Fortnite by having characters with special abilities -- a little like Overwatch. (Picture: EA)

Ravi Hiranand

Published: 11:28pm, 15 Feb 2019Updated: 8:53am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

In just two weeks, Apex Legends has become the hottest game in the world. Now it might be heading to the world's biggest gaming market.

Tencent is reportedly in talks with Electronic Arts to bring the hit battle royale game to China, according to the South China Morning Post.

How Fortnite and PUBG made battle royale the hottest trend in gaming

It would complete a remarkable trio for Tencent, which already has the rights to Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) in China, not to mention the global rights to publish PUBG Mobile.

But even though it's far younger than those two titans, Apex Legends has proven to be something special. While most games get months (if not years) of hype and promotion, this game was released on the same day it was publicly unveiled.

The surprise release worked. Within a week, Apex Legends had two million peak concurrent players -- a figure that took Fortnite 16 weeks to achieve, according to Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners. Within two weeks, 25 million players signed up for the free-to-play game. And it consistently tops the "most-watched" charts on Twitch.