Hololive’s Minato Aqua completes mega Apex Legends challenge after a year

Andrew Amos
Minato Aqua smiling next to Ash in Apex Legends

Hololive star Minato Aqua has finally completed an Apex Legends challenge a year in the making. The virtual maid finally completed her solo queue to Masters quest after benching it due to health concerns and other commitments, leaving her in shock.

Minato Aqua is known as one of the best gamers in Hololive, but she had to put the mouse and keyboard down in 2021 due to health issues and talent commitments.

At the time, she was trying to complete her dream challenge ⁠— reaching Master rank in Apex Legends. She had lingered around in Diamond for quite some time, but could never get that shiny purple border.

Aqua was determined to do it alone; to try and silence the haters who doubted her after she pulled out the first time. Finally, 12 months on after embarking on the challenge, Minato Aqua finally has the rank she’s long sought after.

It came on a February 4 stream, two weeks on after she kickstarted the challenge again. She started in Platinum 4 and slowly grinded her way up to Diamond 1, where she sat tantalizingly close to her dream.

In a clinical final game though, where she racked up four kills with 1000 damage in a big win, she finally saw that rank up screen, and it left her in tears.

“Is this what you call ‘choking up on your words’? I’m really happy,” she said, breaking down on stream.

“A year ago I tried the solo Master challenge but I couldn’t achieve it. I was really frustrated and I let everyone that believed in me down.

“People were saying that it might be impossible after all, but this is real. I’m really happy. I’m glad that I worked hard to achieve it. People were saying ‘it’s impossible’ or ‘you’re not a gamer maid anymore’, but thank you everyone that believed and waited for me.”

Watch the final moments of Minato Aqua’s Apex challenge here.

She was joined by more than 50,000 people live ⁠— her single YouTube stream outnumbering the number of viewers on Twitch for Apex Legends at the same time (which sat at around 44,000 viewers) ⁠— and the VOD has now been watched more than a million times.

“Thank you so much for all your support until the end,” she said on Twitter after ending her stream. “I did my best even though I kept being told it was impossible. This effort was not in vain.”

With Master now achieved, Minato Aqua could choose to push to Predator ⁠— with Season 12 around the corner that may be hard. But the maid feels like she’s redeemed herself and is ready to take on whatever gaming challenge sits around the corner in 2022.

About The Author

Hailing from Perth, Andrew was formerly Dexerto's Australian Managing Editor. They love telling stories across all games and esports, but they have a soft spot for League of Legends and Rainbow Six. Oh, and they're also fascinated by the rise of VTubers.