Who Has The Smallest Hitbox In Apex Legends? Answered

Hitboxes are part of a universal gameplay mechanic that can make or break a game. Hitbox sizes are an essential factor to consider when playing Apex Legends, as they can be the difference between victory and defeat. High-ranked players are well aware not only of their own character’s hitbox size, but also those of other legends, giving them a competitive edge over their enemies.

Without further delay, let's explore some of the smallest hitboxes in Apex Legends and see how they impact player performance and the game itself.

What Is A Hitbox?

In order to fully take advantage of different hitbox sizes, it is important to first understand what a hitbox actually is. A simple explanation would define it as the area on character models where bullets inflict damage. Being well versed in the workings of hitboxes in Apex can result in increased skill.

Once you understand what a hitbox is, you can recognize its importance in the competitive world of Apex Legends.

How Are Hitboxes Assigned In Apex Legends?

Apex Legends’ characters come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. This makes balancing the different hitbox sizes a difficult job. In order to solve this challenge, Respawn decided to categorize legends into 3 different sizes. Small, medium, and large.

Small characters such as Wraith, Lifeline, and Wattson, have smaller hitboxes, and legends such as Caustic, Gibraltar, and Newcastle are characters that have larger hitboxes. Certain characters that are neither too large nor too small come into the medium range of sizes.

What Is The Smallest Hitbox Size In Apex Legends?

Wraith is the smallest character in Apex Legends, having the smallest hitbox size of approximately 33 square cm. There are a few other characters too that also have some of the smallest hitboxes relative to other characters in the game, such as Lifeline, Bloodhound and Wattson. They are all close competitors in the small-sized category of legends.

The remaining are tied at a hitbox size of 37 square cm. It is essential to give credit to the community when it comes to research about hitbox sizes, as Respawn Entertainment has provided very little information about this game mechanic.

The medium-sized legends, such as Mirage, Bangalore, and Crypto, are largely uniform and have their hitboxes sized around 44 square cm. On the other end of the spectrum, larger legends such as Gibraltar and Caustic are sized around 79 and 68 square cm, respectively, almost double the size of some of the smaller legends, highlighting the large gap between legend sizes.

Here Is A Summary Of All Confirmed Hitboxes

A Reddit user by the name of “sookiespy”, summarised some of the confirmed Apex Legends hitboxes which can be seen in a tabular form below.

This tabular summary highlights the wide range of hitboxes across the spectrum.

Do Smaller Hitboxes Give You A Competitive Edge?

Technically speaking, smaller characters with smaller hitboxes are harder to hit accurately. They are often very mobile and agile, allowing them to slip away during intense gunfights. But this would result in Wraith becoming an overpowered legend with the least global deaths, which isn't true as legends with larger hitboxes are not directly impacted by this.

As much as players love ranking up quickly, picking small legends over others does not seem to be a guaranteed solution to help boost your rank up the ladder, as other factors such as personal skill and character abilities also affect ranked play.

How Have Apex Legends’ Hitboxes Evolved?

Respawn's initial attempt at balancing hitboxes, was to introduce a passive trait for characters with smaller hitboxes, called Low Profile, which would mean that smaller legends would take more damage. This was an increase of 5% as compared to larger legends.

After the Genesis event in 2021, some of the legends that previously featured small hitboxes received a size increase, removing Low Profile and giving the title a sense of balance. In addition to this, Respawn decided to give large characters a passive trait called the Fortified Perk, which meant that characters with large hitboxes would take less incoming damage, a decrease of up to 15%.

What Is The Future Of Small Hitboxes?

Although Respawn Entertainment has disclosed little to no information about future hitbox changes, it acknowledges that extreme cases on the board can lead to gameplay irregularities that may affect ranked play. Hence, the studio will monitor hitbox variations to provide a smooth experience for the game’s seasoned and new players.

The game has received multiple updates since it was first released, and the developers have managed to balance gameplay mechanics according to player feedback. This negates any advantage a smaller hitbox may have over a larger hitbox when it comes to earning experience in competitive matches.