“Apex Legends,” a game developed by Electronics Arts Inc as a competitor to the wildly popular “Fortnite” has signed up 10 million players within three days of its launch.

"This has been a truly incredible journey. We tested and tweaked. We argued and agreed. We got to a point where we felt some magic. We knew it would be risky to take the franchise in this direction, to go free to play, and do a surprise launch. But we fell in love with Apex Legends and wanted, needed, other people to play it too.

We hoped you’d love it as much as us, but never in our wildest dreams could we have expected the outpouring of support and positivity we’ve seen. From all of us at Respawn, thank you for giving us and Apex Legends a chance. Thank you for joining us on this journey. This is just the beginning! We have so much more in store for you this year," said Respawn Entertainment's Vince Zampella.

With “Apex Legends,” EA is hoping to reproduce the success of “Fortnite,” a sort of hybrid of “The Hunger Games” and “Minecraft” that drops 100 people onto an island to fight each other for survival.

As of Friday, the game was the most viewed on gaming live-streaming network Twitch.

Last week EA lowered its yearly revenue projections following weak sales of its “Battlefield V” title. The increased popularity of free-to-play online games like “Fortnite” and “PUBG” areforcing the company and its industry peers Activision-Blizzard and Take-Two to reconsider their strategies.

“Fortnite” and “PUBG,” each backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent, are credited with helping take gaming to new audiences and popularizing the battle royale format, where dozens of online players battle each other to the death.