The characters of Apex Legends, including Valkyrie, Crypto, and Horizon, have some surprisingly tragic backstories.
Apex Legends, one of the most talked-about video games of 2021, has some of the most three-dimensional video game characters – each backed by their own journies of purpose, necessity, and sometimes, redemption. Every Legend in the game has a story and it drives their purpose in the games. The backstory of most of the current legends is out and live – each connecting to the other in apparent and not-so apparent ways.
All Legends have their own shares of grief and tragedy. Some have had a single tragic event that shattered everything, whereas others have had to live through an unfortunate chain of tragedies before the games. Nevertheless, only two handfuls of Legends (so far) are channelizing their unbearable past into the games to redeem their own causes.
This badass Titan pilot enters the Apex Games in season 9 to build a legacy for herself. But, that wasn’t the original plan. In Titanfall 2, the Apex predator and Kairi’s father, Viper is killed by the Titan BT and Captain Jack Cooper.
Extremely broken and enraged by her father’s death, Kai holds onto a single mission all her life – to avenge Viper by killing Kuban Blisk. However, Blisk reveals that Viper only wanted Kairi to have her own legacy, and now, Valk is in the Games to build it for her legacy for her dad.
Octane is one of the most popular and undoubtedly, the most hyper Legends. Anyone who has played Octane knows he isn’t biologically that fast. He boosts his speed with constant shots of adrenaline. He can’t live nor function without it. His restless behavior, hyper personality, and chronic boredom border on symptoms of ADHD – which may be a condition he suffers.
Octane is possibly the product of negligent parenting. Despite owning a pharmaceutical brand, Octane’s parents paid little to no medical attention to their son’s condition. He grows up with his symptoms and takes his condition upon himself, by turning to deathly acts, stunts, and drugs to keep himself steady, sane, and fast enough to his liking.
Most (or all) of the Apex Legends have one thing that Mirage doesn’t – a single personality on and off the arena. Mirage’s personality, unlike the Legends, is based on his surrounding. When he’s with others, he’s a flamboyant version of himself, but when he’s alone, he shifts into his truest, deepest, rawest self who’s not the happy, excited, and pompous dude he portrays himself to be.
As a child, Mirage’s tact for recognition was fooling around. The youngest of four sons, Mirage was at home most of the time, helping his engineer mother with her Holo-Pilot tech. He loses his brothers and his dad at a very young age. Mirage’s self-deprecating humor, random comedy, and player personality seem to be coping mechanisms he actively implements to feel better than he actually does.
Pathfinder is an MRVN modified to help the Outlands energy crisis loses his sense of purpose after the ‘Phase Runner Incident’ on Olympus. Dr. Ashleigh Reid along with the IMC and Apex Predators seize the science facility to send all the Pathfinder-refined Branthium to Gridiron. When Pathfinder withholds this malicious attempt to derail the mission, Reid shoots, stabs, and damages him.
With more IMC and Predator troops storming into the facility, the scientists had to destroy the facility before it fell into the hands of the bad guys. Pathfinder calls for self-destruction and travels to the planet Solace via the Phase Runner. Now, Pathfinder has no memory of his past, his creators, and his purpose. He employs himself to find purpose and hopefully, info about his creators.
One of the best Legends to counter third-partying, Crypto’s journey is a cocktail of tragedies. As an orphan, Tae Joon (Crypto) grew up on the streets until Mrs. Katerina Ticacek (Caustic’s mother) took him in. Foster life enables him to learn computer engineering and take to tech consultancy. He then becomes a professional tech consulting entrepreneur along with his sister, Mia. Hell breaks loose when they begin working for their biggest client yet.
Tae Joon’s drone-development project to live-broadcast the Apex games for the Mercenary Syndicate accidentally surfaces a dark secret about the games. This endangers Mia’s life the very next day and Joon is framed for her plausible murder. Joon gets under the radar with multiple body modifications and an entire identity makeover to completely conceal Tae Joon and become Crypto.
After losing their parents to a flash freeze raging from an exploded cooling tower nearby, Bloodhound, one of the best Apex Legends characters for new players, is raised by their uncle, Artur, whom they relentlessly try to please for 10 years. Given the reason for almost the entire town’s extinction, Artur and his tribe swear to reject technology in all forms and always stick to the old ways of hunting and gathering. He teaches Bloodhound the same.
When Bloodhound earns the family ax, his very next mission to use it and prove himself to his uncle results in mutilating and then enraging a prowler of the land that not only threatens the village but also ends up killing Artur in the incident. Bloodhound is now left with nobody, except for his guiding raven. He directs all his pain into skill and becomes the best hunter in the Games and one of the best in Talos.
Wraith’s story is a circle – it all starts with and comes back to her. Renee Blasey and Amer Singh were working on an experiment called ‘Phase Shift.’ It would allow brief teleportation into an alternate dimension. When there was no one to test the experiment on, Blasey volunteers to become the lab rat. The experiment’s effects leave her no memory of who she was and what had happened.
In this unstable state, Mr. Singh, her work companion, leaves her all alone in the lab facility. The experiment is what gives Wraith her void abilities in the game. Paradoxically, Blasey’s future self – Wraith, returns to the facility to help and teach her confused, frightened, and hysterical past self to listen to the voices from the distinct dimensions and leverage them.
Loba enters the games with revenge and hatred. She wishes to give Revenant a taste of his own medicine, in a storyline reminiscent of must-see revenge movies. The reason goes back to when Loba was 9 years old. She could’ve never imagined the gruesome turn her life would take at such a young age. Her father and a professional thief and con-man, Marcos Andrade has a bounty on him and Revenant is the hunter. He arrives as per orders and kills Loba’s father.
That night, Loba not only loses her dad, but also her mum. After losing everything in the blink of an eye, Loba is left to practically raise herself. Though she is admitted into a secure foster home, Loba’s tragedy is far too deep to not avenge. She grows up to become a great thief with commendable street knowledge and skills and is now after Revenant.
Horizon’s story of brutal betrayal brings her to the games to try and find a way to the past. When Olympus was under the emergence of a dire energy crisis, the astrophysicist, Dr. Mary Somers (Horizon), decides to search for and obtain Branthium, a black-hole element that would save the energy crisis back at home. To find the element, Somers must leave her son and travel far into the unknown.
Dr. Somers and her assistant Dr. Ashleigh Reid successfully extract Branthium from a black hole – but only one of them returns with stolen element. Dr. Reid maliciously detaches Dr. Somers’ shuttle to let her die in space. Luckily, N.E.W.T, Somers’ modified robot vacuum companion helps her escape death. But homecoming, 87 years later, has Olympus in a rift, and her baby boy has passed away.
Beaulah is an aspiring author (and hopefully a singer too). She enjoys writing, exploring new music genres, contemplating reality (all the time), and indulging in some serious 90’s fashion and hair-dos. Thriller/horror content is her favorite past-time. She loves flowers, sarees, weddings, and desserts.
