How to Turn On Bots in Apex Legends

Apex Legends is a fast-paced battle royale that emphasizes proper gunplay abilities, good positioning, and team coordination. While players can improve their team-based skills only in games against other players, the Firing Range is an excellent place to improve your aim. However, gunning stationary targets get old quite quickly and don’t present much of a challenge. Thankfully, Respawn Entertainment has introduced a few easter eggs in the Firing Range to keep players more invested, including AI opponents to practice on.

Here is what you need to know about playing against AI opponents in Apex Legends.

How to Turn On Bots in Apex Legends?

Currently, the bots are only available in the game’s Firing Range mode. Players can use this opportunity to practice positioning and gunplay since the Firing Range unlocks all weapons and attachments. It also covers a decently-sized area which can be useful in figuring out long-range tactics and aiming. Usually, the Firing Range is only populated by stationary humanoids and moving rectangular targets for you to practice on, but that isn’t really interesting or provoking. The bots are a hidden feature that offers more challenges out of this mode and you may even learn a thing or two in the process.

Follow these steps to unlock bots in the Firing Range:

1. Go into the Firing Range (using the play mode selection in the main game menu). You can follow these steps alone or with a friend if you want some co-op action. Then again, if you already have a team, playing against other players is usually more fun. But we digress.
2. Once you’re in the firing range, you’ll spawn in one dark cave. Notice how once you exit, there are two more nearly identical caves to your left and right.
3. Turn to your left and go into that spawn cave.
   
4. Drop your starting P2020 (or other weapons you picked up) and ammo from the inventory (you’ll need to drag the weapon to the side to drop it). For this easter egg to work, you shouldn’t have gear or weapons equipped.
   
5. Press “M” to open the character selection screen.
6. You can choose Pathfinder, but Loba and Horizon can work as well.
   
7. Inside the cave, you’ll spot a metal rafter (a hanging sheet or pole) near the ceiling. You can turn up the game’s brightness slightly to better differentiate it from the wall since the area is pretty dark.
   
8. Now, you need to get onto that sheet. If you’re using Pathfinder, you can use your grapple to pull yourself to the sheet or the wall above it. When using Loba, toss your tactical bracelet on top of the sheet (this might take a few tries to hit properly). Or you can use Horizon’s gravity lift to jump to the sheet, although in-air maneuverability might be a bit difficult.
   
9. Once you’ve landed on the sheet, crouch (use either the toggle crouch or hold the crouch button) and look down. You need to hit the right spot just on the edge of the sheet facing the cave exit.
   
   
10. Press “M” again and change to any other legend. You can change back to the legend you used previously afterward – it won’t change the overall result.
    
11. You should hear a sound of hitting metal once the legend is changed. This indicates that the easter egg is in effect. If you don’t hear it when changing legends, you need to position yourself a bit better.
12. If you’ve heard the sound, drop from the sheet and run for the weapon racks.
13. The AI bots will start shooting at you as soon as you approach the weapon racks. They take their time aiming and shooting, but there are a few of them at once and they mostly fire in unison.
    
14. Loot what weapons and gear you can to stabilize and shoot back at them.
15. Once you shoot down a bot, a new one will spawn shortly afterward.

You can look at this video overview to show everything in action.

The bots carry standard weapons and fire in bursts, although they aren’t quite as good as human players. Still, this PvE mode can prove to be solid training grounds if you want a more engaging practice mode without playing against real opponents.

How to Get Bots in Apex Legends Firing Range?

Once you’ve enabled bots, they won’t stop coming, and the only way to get rid of them for good is to exit the Firing Range. The next time you enter, you’ll need to repeat the steps above to re-enable them.

The bots come in a variety of skill levels, indicated by their color. The white bots carry basic body shields and are the least threatening, while blue bots have slightly improved AI commands and blue shields. Purple bots are the most challenging and use a purple body shield to absorb more shots.

All bots carry either a Peacekeeper shotgun (normally available as a care package weapon during season 8), a Hemlok, or an L-Star. They fire Hemloks and L-Stars in small bursts, which can do quite a lot of damage if they get close enough.

You can practice several gunplay abilities on bots, but the most important one is crouch-strafing (also known as crouch-spamming). When you crouch, your character becomes a much smaller target to hit effectively, and your aim doesn’t get affected too badly. If you quickly swap between a crouched and upright position, you can avoid some nasty hits that would’ve otherwise gone to your legend’s head and body.

Apex Legends Playing Firing Range in Third Person

Another fun thing you can do in the Firing Range is to enable third-person shooting and enjoy Apex Legends from an entirely different perspective. This easter egg is similar to the Robot Revolution we’ve discussed above. You can use the third-person and AI modes in conjunction to give you a slightly different challenge compared to what you’re used to in regular gameplay.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Enter the Firing Range.
2. Drop your weapons and ammo, and don’t pick up any new gear.
3. Once you’re near the weapon racks, go to the mountain in the center of the field.
4. There’s a small brush behind the furthermost target to the right at the top.
5. Go as far as you can into the corner and crouch into the brush.
6. Enter the character selection screen (“M” by default) and change to any other legend.
7. The game should enter a third-person mode immediately. If it doesn’t, move around a bit and repeat the previous step.

Here’s a neat video that quickly explains where you need to go.

The third-person mode feels a bit different compared to the normal first-person shooter you’re used to. However, you should probably get the hang of it pretty quickly. Once you’re able to hit the stationary targets near the weapon racks or the moving squares, turn on the AI bots by following the instructions in the sections above for a bigger challenge!

Additional FAQ

What Is Robot Revolution in Apex Legends?

Although the easter egg that adds AI opponents to the Firing Range doesn’t have a designated official name, some players have dubbed it The Robot Revolution. Perhaps this easter egg is the first step towards a PvE game mode or a way to add bot players when your companions leave halfway through the match. We can only hope on the latter.

How Do I Turn On AI in Apex?

When you enter a normal or ranked match, you’re paired with and against other human players. The game doesn’t use any form of AI opponents during battles and won’t replace missing players with bots (unlike some games would).

If you want to experience how advanced Apex Legend’s AI is, you’ll need to enter the Firing Range and enable the easter egg mentioned above.

Are There AI Bots in Apex Legends?

While playing a normal or ranked match, you won’t encounter AI opponents. The Firing Range is the only way to fight against DUMMIEs. If you enable the AI easter egg, the bots become mobile and equip themselves with a few weapons to shoot back. Perhaps Skynet is not that far-fetched, after all.

Does Apex Legends Have Bots?

Generally speaking, Apex Legends is a fully multiplayer game that doesn’t have PvE components or AI opponents to beat. If you want to practice your gunplay skills, head on to the Firing Range. If you want more challenge than stationary DUMMIEs (that is their actual name), turn on AI opponents by following our easter egg instructions above.

Other Firing Range Easter Eggs

Every map in the game has small Nessie plushies scattered around the place, and the Firing Range is no different. Can you find Nessie on the Firing Range?

Practice in Apex Legends Just Got Interesting

If you’re bored of the regular targets on the Firing Range, you can kick things up a notch and fight against moving bots that actually shoot back. Once you follow our instructions on how to enable this easter egg, run for the closest weapon rack and take charge against the AI. Have fun practicing your gunplay skills.

What other Apex Legends easter eggs do you know? Let us know in the comment section below.