PUBG vs Apex Legends – Which Battle Royale Game Reigns Supreme in 2024?

As a hardcore battle royale gamer and content creator, this is an epic game debate I get asked a lot – which is better between PUBG and Apex Legends in 2024? After diving deep into the stats across various key factors, here is my in-depth analysis:

Popularity and Player Counts: PUBG Dominates Mobile, Apex Tops Consoles/PC

When it comes to total player count, PUBG Mobile is far and away the most popular battle royale game in the world right now with over 100 million monthly active players on mobile alone (source). However, PUBG console and PC numbers are lower, with under 1 million concurrent daily players on Steam (source).

Meanwhile, if we focus specifically on PC and consoles, Apex Legends has a strong lead over PUBG on those platforms – Apex consistently sits in the top 5 games by monthly players on console and PC with around 2-4 million daily players (source).

So in summary:

• PUBG dominates the mobile gaming scene
• Apex Legends leads on PC/consoles

This means both games have extremely healthy player bases, but PUBG vs Apex appeal to slightly different demographics. PUBG attracts more casual mobile gamers, while Apex is firmly situated in the competitive PC/console esports sphere.

Game Modes and Content Updates: Apex Takes the Lead

Another key area is new content – which game receives more maps, characters, weapons, game modes and meaningful gameplay updates?

Hands down, Apex Legends wins when it comes to continuously releasing fresh game content like new playable heroes, map changes, limited time modes, and progression systems. Apex drops massive seasonal updates every few months that drastically shake up the meta and give players tons of challenges and lore content to dive into (source).

Whereas PUBG focuses more on graphical overhauls and technical/quality-of-life improvements rather than bold new gameplay features (source). Now that‘s not to say PUBG doesn‘t get updates – but Apex‘s content drops are consistently larger, more frequent and meta-changing.

Gameplay Differences: PUBG‘s Realism vs Apex‘s Hero Abilities

On the actual gameplay front, PUBG and Apex appeal to quite different gamer psychographics and preferences:

PUBG delivers a hardcore militaristic realism – bullet ballistics and weapon handling feel lifelike. The pacing forces smart positioning and methodical rotations. Gunfights are often decided in split seconds by who lands the most accurate initial full-auto sprays. It‘s less frantic and about outsmarting opponents.

Comparatively, Apex Legends has a slick, arcade-like feel accentuated by unique hero abilities, faster movement, and shield mechanics that allow you to reset fights more often. Engagements feature more strafing, jumping, and activating powers at precisely the right moments to outplay enemies. Less hide-and-seek tactics, more flashy mechanical outplays.

In essence, PUBG victory goes to those with veteran battle IQ to control zones and spot+track targets accurately. Apex Legends rewards individual flair and mastery over unique hero skillsets. Both test skill, but different skills – PUBG is more chess-like, while Apex resembles NBA Jam dialed up to 11 in a battle royale format.

Monetization and Incentives: Battle Passes vs Lootboxes

Let‘s move onto everyone‘s favorite topic – how do these free games convince you to actually spend money on them?

Apex Legends‘ progression system mainly revolves around seasonal Battle Passes – offering up exclusive skins, materials, badges, gun charms and more as you play during each season. This incentivizes regular logins to complete missions and level up your Pass tier (source).

PUBG also has Battle Passes now, but combines those with copious amounts of loot boxes – called "crates" – that require players to repeatedly purchase keys just to open them for a chance at rare cosmetic skins (source). So Apex feels a bit more player-friendly and transparent here.

Both games allow purchasing skins outright too of course. But especially on mobile, PUBG really leans into those loot box gambling mechanics to drive in-game spending.

Competitive Scenes: Apex Dominates Esports Viewership

Esports viewership and pro league support is another area where currently, Apex Legends massively overshadows PUBG:

Recent data shows Apex Legends trails only League of Legends and Valorant for peak esports hours watched on Twitch at over 40 million hours during 2022 (source).

PUBG by comparison garners only a few hundred thousand esports viewing hours – not even in the top 10 most watched competitive games (source).

Apex Legends competitive dominance comes down to developer Respawn pouring extensive resources into structured Apex Esports leagues, events and ramping up production value of broadcasts versus PUBG‘s more community-run model.

Performance and Optimization: Apex Wins By a Longshot

When it comes to game performance and polish on PC and consoles, Apex Legends absolutely demolishes PUBG here. As a newer AAA game on a robust modern game engine, Apex was built to take advantage of the latest hardware and run silky smooth:

Multiple benchmarks show Apex Legends achieving 2-3X higher framerates over PUBG on a given PC setup thanks to much heavier optimization for CPUs/GPUs (source). Apex also supports up to 144+ FPS modes.

Overall, gamers widely report Apex feeling more responsive with fewer bugs and glitches. Given PUBG is built on an older iteration of Unreal Engine by comparison, it is unsurprisingly rougher around the edges here.

Developer Support: Advantage Apex

Supporting live service games for years post-launch always requires ongoing developer resources. Here Apex Legends is firmly ahead once again, for a couple reasons:

Firstly, Apex Legends has a massive team actively working on the game – reportedly over 450 developers at Respawn Entertainment. PUBG by comparison has a much smaller ongoing team.

Secondly, likely because Apex makes significantly more profit thanks to its leadership on consoles/PC, EA seems committed to investing resources into Apex for many more years – promising ongoing updates, seasons, esports league support and more (source).

PUBG meanwhile feels like updates are slowing down, and its roadmap beyond the next year is vague – signs of diminishing allocation of resources. Lack of console/PC players and profits here seem to be catching up.

The combination of huge active development staff and indefinite long term publisher commitment to Apex makes me confident Respawn will maintain superiority here for as long as PUBG relies mainly on mobile monetization.

Conclusion: It‘s Close, But Advantage Apex…For Now

Given the above analysis comparing these two titans of the battle royale industry on key metrics like gameplay, updates, esports viewership and performance – Apex Legends has a slight edge currently as the "better game" in 2024 for serious PC/console gamers.

PUBG Mobile clearly dominates the mobile sphere specifically when looking at total player numbers. However, for an overall polish, content cadence and gameplay experience that outclasses its long-in-the-tooth rival, I believe Apex Legends retains the battle royale crown on console and PC platforms right now.

That said – early signs point to PUBG "2.0" coming in 2024…a sequel built on Unreal Engine 5 that may close the gap in terms of graphics and gunplay. So we‘ll have to revisit this video game debate once both games deploy their next major evolutionary updates!

For now, I give a slight scorecard advantage to Apex Legends as better balancing performance polish, rewarding progression systems and long-term developer support. Let me know which battle royale game you prefer in the comments!