Apex was an annual

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional sports, professional players, individually or as ...

tournament held in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

that was focused on '' Super Smash Bros.'' The event's first incarnation was in 2009 with Jesus "Jman" Fernandez as the champion of ''

Super Smash Bros. Melee ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' is a 2001 crossover fighting video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the second installment in the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series. It features characters from Nintendo ...

'' and Elliot "Ally" Carroza-Oyarce as champion of ''

Super Smash Bros. Brawl ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' is a 2008 crossover fighting video game developed by Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Wii. The third installment in the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series, it was announced at a pre-E3 2005 press conferenc ...

''. Each year the event grew with more competitors entering. Apex 2014 garnered 629 entrants and was the 2nd largest tournament for ''Melee'' at the time after EVO 2013. Though the tournament initially focused on ''Brawl'', the feature game has since switched to ''Melee'' due to its popularity. In 2010, an event for '' Super Smash Bros.'' for the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and ...

was added. In 2014, the fan

modification Modification may refer to: * Modifications of school work for students with special educational needs * Modifications (genetics), changes in appearance arising from changes in the environment * Posttranslational modifications, changes to prote ...

of ''Brawl'', ''

Project M ''Project M'' is a mod of the 2008 fighting game ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' for the Wii, created by the community group known as the Project M Development Team (PMDT; previously known as the Project M Back Room). It is designed to retool ''B ...

'' was added for singles only. ''Project M'' has recently been removed as an official event out copyright concerns under

Nintendo of America is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing card ...

sponsorship and Third Party relations. Apex 2015 was officially sponsored by

and was the largest tournament for ''Super Smash Bros.'' in history until it was surpassed by EVO 2015. Apex has been described as the "

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...

of 'Super Smash Bros.'" by Ben Lindbergh of sports website ''

Grantland ''Grantland'' was a sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN. The blog was started in 2011 by veteran writer and sports journalist Bill Simmons, who remained as editor-in-chief until May 2015. ''Grantland'' was named after famed e ...

''.

History

Apex was founded in 2009 by Johnathan Lugo, known by his alias "Alex Strife", as a ''Super Smash Bros.'' tournament. The tournament also hosts side events which include fighting games such as ''

Street Fighter , commonly abbreviated as ''SF'' or スト (''Suto''), is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Capcom. The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by six ...

'', '' Marvel vs. Capcom'', ''

Tekken is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment (formerly Namco). The franchise also includes film and print adaptations. The main games in the series ...

'', and others.

2009

Apex 2009 was hosted at the

Clarion Hotel Choice Hotels International, Inc. is an American multinational hospitality company based in Rockville, Maryland. The company, which is one of the largest hotel chains in the world, owns several hotel brands ranging from upscale to economy. As ...

Palmer Inn in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of w ...

. The tournament featured ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'', ''Melee'', and Brawl+. Melee singles was won by Jman and doubles was won by Mew2King and Jman. Brawl singles was won by Ally and doubles was won by Ally and Mew2King. Brawl+ singles was won by ChuDat. In Brawl crews, MD/VA won.

2010

Apex 2010 was hosted in

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city in and the seat of government of Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Rutgers University–New Brunswick Rutgers University–New Brunswick is one of three regional campuses of Rutgers University, New Jersey's public research university. It is located in New Brunswick and Piscataway. It is the oldest campus of the university, the others bein ...

's College Avenue Student Center. It featured ''Melee'', ''Brawl'', and ''Super Smash Bros. 64''. It also featured the Brawl mods Brawl+ and Brawl-.

2012

After a one-year hiatus, Apex 2012 returned to New Brunswick, New Jersey at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

's College Avenue Student Center. It featured ''Melee'', ''Brawl'', and ''64''. Melee Singles was won by Armada and doubles by Armada and Mew2King. Brawl was won by Otori in singles and Otori and Kakera in doubles. Smash 64 was won by SuPeRbOoMfAn and doubles was won by Isai and Nintendude. In Melee USA v the World, USA won by a massive 8 stocks. Brawl was set to have a crew battle, but it was cancelled due to time constraints. The tournament was criticized because Brawl did not have enough setups, causing delay in pool matches and necessitating the cancellation of the crew battle.

2013

Apex 2013 was again hosted in the College Avenue Student Center at Rutgers University featuring ''Melee'', ''Brawl'', and ''64''. It also featured USA v The World crew battles for both Melee and Brawl. In addition, Melee had The Links v The Stinks crew battle, in which a team of seven Links challenged team of six well known low tier mains and were joined by "The Final Boss," Kage, to a crew battle.

2014

Apex 2014 was hosted at the

DoubleTree DoubleTree by Hilton is an American hotel chain managed by Hilton Worldwide. DoubleTree has been the fastest growing Hilton brand by number of properties since 2007, and by number of rooms from 2007 to 2015. As of December 31, 2019, it has 587 p ...

hotel in

Somerset, New Jersey Somerset is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Franklin Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States.Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and are 2014 remakes of the 2002 Game Boy Advance role-playing video games ''Pokémon Ruby'' and ''Sapphire'', also including features from '' Pokémon Emerald''. The games are part of the sixth generation of the ''Pokémon'' video game ser ...

'', ''

Ultra Street Fighter IV is a 2008 fighting game published by Capcom, who also co-developed the game with Dimps. It was the first original main entry in the series since ''Street Fighter III'' in 1997, a hiatus of eleven years. The coin-operated arcade game version was ...

'', ''

Guilty Gear Xrd is a fighting video game sub-series by Arc System Works and part of the ''Guilty Gear'' series. ''Guilty Gear Xrd'' was developed using Unreal Engine 3, with cel-shaded graphics in place of the series traditional hand drawn sprites. Following t ...

'', ''

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a crossover fighting game developed by Capcom in collaboration with Eighting. It is an updated version of '' Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds''. The game features characters from both Capcom's video game franchises and comic book se ...

'', ''

Killer Instinct ''Killer Instinct'' is a series of fighting video games originally created by Rare and published by Midway, Nintendo, and Microsoft Studios. The original ''Killer Instinct'' was released for arcades in 1994; the game was then released for t ...

''. It was initially hosted at

Clarion Clarion may refer to: Music * Clarion (instrument), a type of trumpet used in the Middle Ages * The register of a clarinet that ranges from B4 to C6 * A trumpet organ stop that usually plays an octave above unison pitch * "Clarion" (song), a 2 ...

Hotel Empire Meadowlands in

Secaucus, New Jersey Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264, ''Super Smash Bros. for Wii U'' included over 800 entrants. The tournament was officially sponsored by Nintendo and included a playable demo of ''

Splatoon is a third-person shooter video game franchise created by Hisashi Nogami, and developed and owned by Nintendo. Set in a post-apocalyptic Earth inhabited by anthropomorphic marine animals, the series centers around fictional cephalopods known a ...

''. Apex dropped ''Brawl'' fan mod ''

'' from its 2015 lineup and all of its qualifiers. Streaming for fangame, ''Super Smash Bros. Crusade'', has also been denied. Lugo alleged he received

death threat A death threat is a threat, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or group of people. These threats are often designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behaviour, in which case a deat ...

s for the dropping of ''Project M'' from some members of the community. In January 2015, Lugo announced he was stepping down from Apex after multiple media reports alleging sexual harassment by tournament attendees. After a fire alarm was accidentally set off on the morning of January 30, fire marshals discovered that parts of the hotel were in violation of safety codes. The marshals removed access to the ballrooms, which had a partially collapsed roof. The main tournament was delayed for a day and was moved 40 miles away to the Garden State Convention Center in

References

External links

* {{Authority control Super Smash Bros. tournaments Recurring sporting events established in 2009 Events in New Jersey 2009 establishments in New Jersey