Multiplayer games often borrow ideas from each other all the time, whether that’s with different modes, map designs or certain quality of life features that just improve the genre as a whole. It’s hard to trace the roots of each individual aspect of a multiplayer game, but there’s one feature that’s become a true innovation over the past couple of years, and it’s gone as far as to ruin other multiplayer games for me: the ping system.
The ping system is an incredibly useful feature in multiplayer games that allows you to easily communicate vital information with your entire team. Largely used to indicate a desired destination or the location of certain enemies, more complex ping usage includes indicating whether or not enemies have been through a certain area, or that you plan on looting or defending a location. It’s a versatile and effective system, but one that’s still not quite as prevalent as it could be.
Pinging objects in the environment of multiplayer games has been around for a while, though maybe not in the overt and user-friendly fashion it appears today. Games like Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 allowed you to ping objects and enemies in the environment for others to see, and Turtle Rock took that feature and applied it to their next game, Evolve, the 4v1 hunting game that died a death. Hopefully, Back 4 Blood will see the feature return too.
The Battlefield series also features a ping system of sorts, with players able to mark the locations of enemies so that the rest of the squad or team can move in. The Squad leader can also mark key objectives they want to attack and defend in order to earn more points and XP for the squad. It’s not exactly the most robust system in the world, but again, it’s an easy communication aid.
However, no game has truly pioneered the ping system like Apex Legends. Respawn’s fantastic battle royale, which we’ve all seemingly fallen back in love with over here at Cultured Vultures, broke new ground with its ping system. Team-based battle royale games rely on communication between its team members to succeed, which can be hard to do if everyone’s in their own separate party chats, running in their own directions and getting blasted by trios who actually understand the concept of teamwork.
The ping system in Apex feels like it’s engendered a sense of teamwork where there might not have been any without it. Even if players don’t feel like talking in game chat, the ping system lets players communicate their strategies concisely with the rest of the team. If your random player pings before they run to a fight, you can at least make the decision on whether or not you can try to help or watch them die.
Being able to use the ping system in Apex Legends has been such a transformative experience, especially now that I’m back in on the Apex grind in a big way, so much so that it’s now ruining other multiplayer games for me. Not being able to ping enemies in other multiplayer games feels like your tools have been taken away from you in some capacity. Granted, I’m often playing with friends anyway so audio call-outs are still possible, but pinging sidesteps some of the awkward uncertainty in those call-outs. “He’s behind that corner!” “Which bloody corner?”
Mainly, I’m playing a lot of Overwatch and Knockout City at the moment, though the idea of a ping system in Overwatch might be a bit much. 6 players per team throwing out pings every second of every game might create a lot of visual noise that’s hard to overcome, but that system might be a real tool to counter a flanking Reinhardt or McCree looking for a big Ultimate. It could also be used to set up pushes across a certain lane, instead of spamming “group up with me” and watching the rest of your team walking in the opposite direction.
It’s something that the development team are even considering, as the developers revealed in a Reddit AMA for Overwatch 2 that they’re workshopping a potential ping system for the sequel. Game director Aaron Keller said: “We’ve definitely considered this. In fact we have a prototype of it running internally right now. We don’t make a habit of promising things to players until they are actually announced and I’m not going to break that tradition right now (I’m sure I’ll blow it at some other point in this AMA), but it is something that we are excited about as a team and are working through issues currently.”
Even Knockout City, with its fast paced dodgebrawl mechanics, could probably do with a ping system. Something to signify to your team that you plan on attacking from an off-angle, or that there’s multiple balls lying on the ground for other players to pick. The quick nature of the games means that anything that you do ping will likely be obsolete in a few second’s time, but it’s still a feature I find myself wanting.
It’s clear how successful and revolutionary the ping system was when, a few months after the launch of Apex Legends, a similar system was added to Fortnite. By added, I mean practically copied wholesale, but still. Who can really blame Epic for taking something that so clearly works? Even two years later, there’s been no addition or revolution in the multiplayer gaming scene since that’s been so brilliant, and hopefully we’ll see it added to even more games.
READ MORE: The Best PS5 Multiplayer Games You Should Play
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