A day in the life of Apex Legends esports king ImperialHal

1 day ago 6

ImperialHal's skill catapulted him to stratospheric success, but he's surprisingly down to Earth.

Apex Legends player Philip "ImperialHal" Dosen — who everyone simply refers to as "Hal" — first caught my eye with a display of excellent sportsmanship. During the 2022 Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) Championship, an opposing team was experiencing some serious lag at a pivotal point in the match, and Hal and his team needed all the points they could get. He could have kept shooting. Instead, Dosen ordered his teammates to hold their fire so that the opposing team wouldn't be eliminated over technical difficulties beyond their control. For a guy who makes millions every year for being extremely good at a cutthroat battle royale, Hal's actions struck me as surprisingly humble.

Still, as I pass through two security checks to get up to Dosen's room at the Red Bull Legends Inn — a just-for-fun Apex Legends competition hosted by Dosen and fellow competitor Timothy "iiTzTimmy" An at Chicago's Godfrey Hotel — I can't help but wonder what kind of person I'm about to meet. Will he be friendly and engaged? Perhaps he'll be aloof and distant, or simply tired of talking to journalists.

Outside of his room, there's a security guard to keep an eye on the area. And when I step inside, it's as if the once-normal hotel room has gotten a gaming influencer makeover. Every light has been replaced with a color-changing LED bulb. A humidifier has been plugged in next to the bed, which is covered in Apex Legends pillows. Art from the game has replaced the standard hotel wall decor. A minifridge full of Red Bull sits across from a giant streaming setup, complete with an ergonomic gaming chair. It's clear Red Bull spared no expense for this Hal-hosted event, but when I finally shake hands with the man himself, I'm shocked by how down-to-earth he is. I'm also surprised to learn that both of us got into Apex Legends for the same reason: disliking Fortnite.

Haland Timmy in Hal's hotel room, gaming.

"Before Apex, I was playing Fortnite, and I personally disliked Fortnite a lot as a game," Dosen tells me. "So as soon as I played [Apex Legends], I just fell in love with the basics of the game: the foundation, the movement, the abilities, the gunplay. I feel like it's a game that was made for me, in a way."

He's not wrong: In 2023 — a year after the incident that saw Dosen tell his teammates not to shoot competitors who were experiencing a bug — his team won the ALGS Championship, the biggest competition in Apex Legends esports.

"We were going into the fifth game and we were [in the] bottom five of the finals lobby, and then all of a sudden we just snapped our fingers, won three games in a row, and won the tournament," he says of the win. "That was definitely the biggest moment in my career; [it allowed me] to mentally get out of a rut and just completely turn around and go from doing probably the worst I've ever done in my career, to winning."

Beyond co-hosting the Red Bull Legends Inn experience, Dosen is also participating in the event. The tournament pits 19 teams of two players against each other through nine rounds, but each round has a different rule. Some rounds only allow players to use sniper rifles, others only allow them to use their fists, and some rounds even prevent them from using Legend abilities at all. Fans can pay a small fee to attend, and the end result is lighthearted chaos. But in a month, it'll be time for Dosen to get serious again. This year's ALGS Championship takes place in Sapporo, Japan, where Dosen and his two teammates (collectively called Team Falcons) will vie for a $5 million prize.

"When I compete, I make sure I sleep in as much as I can," Dosen tells me when I ask what he does to prepare for serious tournaments. "I don't have an alarm; I let my body naturally wake up. After that, I try to eat something. But not too much, because I'll just get tired and want to take a nap. I pop a Red Bull, always. Always have a Red Bull. If I feel like I'm not really amped or in the mood, then I listen to some music to get me in that mindset of, 'I'm competing; this is time to do your best.'"

All the Red Bull talk has me skeptical at first — the energy drink manufacturer is sponsoring the event, so surely they told him to say that. But sponsored or not, Dosen's not exaggerating. During the competition, I lose count of how many cans of the stuff he's guzzled down. By the end of the event, I'm surprised he hasn't sprouted wings.

Fans react to gameplay during the tourney.

What actually seems to strain the 26-year-old is the parasocial relationships. Dosen tells me that viewers will sometimes make a large donation while he's livestreaming, expecting something in return.

"I do get into those situations where I get given money [while streaming] and then they ask me to play [Apex with them]," Dosen says. "I dislike that so much, because I already can barely get myself to play with certain pros that are good at the game — well, supposed to be good at the game — and then you're expecting me to play with someone that's not a pro. And it would not be enjoyable for me or the other person. Maybe it would be [fun] for the other person, but I would just be tortured, to be honest."

Dosen says he's not afraid to block or ignore viewers who try to buy their way into playing with him, and given he isn't interested in teaming up with players who aren't as skilled as him, chances are coaching isn't in his future.

"I don't think I would have the patience to talk to a player and tell them, 'Yeah, you should do this or that,' when I feel like I can just pick up the controller and play better than them," Dosen admits. "I'm just too competitive to put myself in a backseat and let someone else play when I could be playing. I think it would just be too hard, and I don't think a lot of people would be able to handle my coaching attitude."

Even as he tells me how much he dislikes teaming up with unskilled players, Dosen never appears haughty or self-absorbed. In fact, for the duration of the interview, Dosen makes eye contact, answering each question thoroughly and thoughtfully — something that cannot always be said for his fellow competitors, one of whom spent the first three minutes of our interview silently scrolling on his phone, fidgeting with the various diamond rings on his hands, and throwing me one-word answers. Dosen admits he has an ego, and who wouldn't with his level of skill and success? But when seated around his contemporaries, he comes off as refreshingly engaged, and it's clear he cares deeply about the game and is passionate about maintaining a healthy relationship with his fans.

"The only thing I feel like I owe to my fans is just performing well," Dosen tells me. "The majority of my following is based on me winning. That's where I got my viewership and following. I started with winning five tournaments in a row at the very beginning of Apex. So I think that the only thing I would ever owe my fan base is to show up if they're there for a meet-and-greet, no matter how I feel. Obviously, there's so many times where I don't want to be at the meet-and-greet because I just lost. But people travel around the world to come and see me, and they didn't make me lose the game. So it's not fair to them for me to [not show up], no matter how I feel."

Dosen pauses for a moment, thinking carefully before adding, "I'll always owe them that: saying hi to them, taking a picture, signing stuff, and obviously playing as best as I can, no matter how I feel or what's going on."

In the end, Dosen, who was teamed up with Timothy " iiTzTimmy" An for the event, lands in fourth place in the Red Bull competition. Watching him play, I'm struck by his levelheadedness. Myself and roughly 100 fans of Dosen and An are all stuffed into a lounge on the Godfrey's fourth floor. Fans are screaming at the top of their lungs, waving merch around, and generally acting like we're at an NFL game, not a just-for-fun video game tourney. Still, when it's all said and done, Hal stands up, congratulates winners Kazakh and Ojrein, waves at fans, grabs a Red Bull (number??), and plants a kiss on his girlfriend.

A month from now, Dosen will compete at the ALGS Year 5 Championship in Japan, but he won't be facing off with An, who recently retired from esports to become a full-time content creator. As for Dosen's future, he says he hasn't "put too much thought into it."

"Obviously, there'll be some point where I need to retire if I want to have a family and stuff like that," he tells me. "But my girlfriend thinks it'll take a while for me to retire and stop competing, to be honest, because of how competitive I am."

It's clear that even after six years of Apex Legends, Dosen still enjoys the game. When the day comes that he no longer competes, though, he envisions a future where he'll continue to play a variety of games, simply for the joy of it.

"I think I would retire in maybe three, four years," he tells me. "Stream any game I want, and just have fun playing, like I'm a kid again."

Read Entire Article