“Apex Legends,” Respawn Entertainment’s own take on the highly popular (and profitable) battle royale genre, was set loose on Monday Feb. 9 to a gaming community hungry for more free-to-play and streamable content.

The release came with little warning. Popular streamers and gamers were flown out to Los Angeles by Electronic Arts and sworn to secrecy via non-disclosure agreement. On the day of the “Apex Legends” release, a livestream was hosted by the developers at Respawn, and dozens of streamers and YouTubers released their own videos, giving their personal reaction to their time with the game.

Popular streamers such as Ninja and Dr.Disrespect have offered their praise for the game, and publications such as IGN and Gamespot have given positive opinions as well.

Many fans of Respawn were initially hoping that “Apex Legends” would turn out to be an announcement for “Titanfall 3,” or a demo trailer for Respawn’s new Star Wars game in development. Intead, when “Apex” turned out to be a battle royale game set in the “Titanfall” universe, but without the titular titans, some were upset.

Since then however, the game’s popularity has hit a massive spike. In it’s 72 hours the game has reached a player count of over 10 million. The game has been lauded for it’s tight squad gameplay and unique character driven combat.

Similar to games like “Black Ops 4” and “Overwatch,” “Apex” employes a roster of “heroes” with unique abilities that mix up the combat. It also borrows a unique trait from the “Battlefield” franchise in the form of “pings” or markers that teammates can drop on the map to point out dangers or points of interest.

Respawn has announced a road map, with at least four “seasons” worth of content. The game will also feature microtransactions for skins and other in-game cosmetics.

“Apex” is available now on all gaming platforms for free.