Third Party: An Apex Legends Podcast

Third Party is an Apex Legends podcast hosted by Shay alongside co-host Henry, running roughly 279 episodes across three years. The format is consistent. A cold open of a squad attacking, a check-in between the two hosts, then the day's subject. What varies is how deep they go. A season fifteen weapon meta discussion needed two parts, close range one week and long range the next, because rushing the SMGs to get to the long-range guns would have shortchanged both. Ranked is the topic they keep circling. One episode takes the community question head on, asking whether ranked is dead and working through what happens to a player's confidence when point structures and distribution change so much that being gold one season and diamond the next tells you nothing. Their answer leans toward rewards rather than punishment, with grindable camos floated as the strongest idea on the table. Map episodes work the same way, treating Broken Moon as something to explore rather than just play, covering points of interest, features and the lore underneath. Holiday episodes loosen up. A Christmas Eve release turns into a wish list of what the hosts most want from the game, spitballing back and forth with no agenda beyond enjoying it. The banter is unforced. One host records in what the other calls a pitch black cave while Shay has an actual window. Halloween leftovers become a hazard. None of it crowds out the game talk. Listener participation is structural, not decorative. Questions come in through a dedicated Discord channel or through five-star reviews, and the hosts commit to answering every one regardless of how long an episode has to run. The show's own community machinery gets thanked by name on air, including Rye for running the Discord from day one, Gavin and JP on editing, and a Patreon supporter credited as producer of The Third Party 10. There is a tournament too, the Third Party Invitational, with patrons getting first access to signups. The final episode is the one that reframes everything else. The hosts announce the retirement of the podcast, look back over three years, and land on the friendships as the thing they cannot imagine life without. It is warmer than a game podcast usually gets, and they say so. The whole archive works as a record of a battle royale scene and the small group that talked about it every other week.