How to Invite Steam Friends to Apex Legends

Updated June 6, 2021 to reflect Apex Legends availability and cross-platform play on Steam.

Apex Legends is a popular team-focused Battle Royal game developed by Respawn (owned by EA Games). The game allows you to connect with your friends and enjoy Battle Royale adventures.

Although APEX Legends features an intuitive, user-friendly interface, adding friends to your game wasn’t very straightforward. You might have noticed that Apex Legends was not anywhere on the platform if you’re a Steam user. In November of 2020, Respawn (and EA Games) released APEX Legends to the Steam platform. The game was initially available only on Origin.

In the past, inviting Steam Friends to APEX Legends was a tedious task, but now, it is as simple as clicking a couple of buttons! Both Origin and Steam users can play together, and you can even transfer your game over to Steam if desired, although that is not necessary. What’s the easiest way of connecting with your friends in Apex Legends? The answer depends on where your friends have the game installed—Origin or Steam.

Adding Apex Legends to Your Steam Game Library

Steam has a very nifty feature that allows you to add non-steam games to your game library on the platform. That will also enable you to use other Steam features, although the game you’re playing isn’t available on Steam. Since APEX Legends is now available on Steam, you don’t need to go through hoops to invite Steam friends to your APEX game. If you or your friend do not have or want APEX Legends in Steam, here’s how to add it as a non-Steam game. Take note that you can play on Origin and continue on Steam if you’d like. There are some steps you need done to share your saves and data across both platforms. Furthermore, your friend can play from Otigin while you play from Steam, also known as cross-platform play.

Linking APEX Legends to Your Steam Account

1. Open Apex Legends
2. Click on the “Friends” icon located in the bottom-right corner of the main menu.
   
3. Select “Link Steam Account” below the “Party Privacy” button in the bottom-left corner of the “Friends” screen.
   
4. A new window appears where you need to enter your Steam account credentials and log in.
5. If you’ve successfully logged into your Steam account, exit Apex Legends.
6. Open Steam.
7. Navigate to your “Library.”
8. Click on “Add Game,” located on the bottom-left side of the “Library” page.
   
9. From the menu that opens, select “Add a Non-Steam Game.”
10. From the next window, select the “Apex Legends” executable file. If not listed, browse and navigate to the folder where you’ve installed Apex Legends. All of your EA games will be located in the “Origin” folder by default.
    
11. Click on the “Add Selected Programs” option. If you haven’t selected an appropriate Apex Legends executable (.exe) file, Steam can’t add the game to your library.
    

If everything’s OK, Apex Legends gets displayed in your Steam library. You can then run the game through Steam as if it was a regular Steam game and invite Steam friends.

Inviting Steam Friends to Apex Legends

Inviting Steam friends to Apex Legends is easy once you’ve added the game to your Steam library. To do so, open Apex Legends and minimize its window. Open Steam and find the friend that you want to invite.

Hover over your friend’s Steam icon, and an arrow will appear right after their name. Select the “Invite to Play” option from the dropdown menu. Steam should recognize the game that you are running and invite the friend to join you.

However, this method isn’t 100% secure as Apex Legends isn’t an officially supported game on Steam.

It is better to add your friends via the Origin platform.

Enjoy Playing Apex Legends with Your Friends

Although you can add Apex Legends to your Steam game library, it isn’t guaranteed that all Steam features will work for this game if you have it installed in the Origin launcher.

In closing, inviting friends to play APEX Legends using Steam was only done by attaching your Steam account to the Origin platform. Now, since Nov. 2020, you can invite your friends using the regular Steam method if both parties have it installed in Steam. Regardless, some of you may have it in your Origin app filled with saved data and customizations, which means you should probably keep it there and just play the game on Steam’s platform.