Like other battle royale games, the maps in Apex Legends play a big role in how each match goes. Apex Legends has multiple maps in its battle royale mode that it rotates through, with the rotation changing season to season and during limited-time events. Developer Respawn also regularly updates Apex Legends’ older maps, changing out points of interest and named locations.
Larger map updates occur at the start of new seasons, while smaller changes like “Town Takeovers” and teasers for future map evolutions and new playable characters typically happen mid-season. Town Takeovers–new points of interest that are each thematically tied to a different playable legend–are usually tied to events. Brand-new maps are traditionally added to Apex Legends in the final season for each year.
The map rotation also changes depending on whether you are playing in ranked or unranked lobbies. For ranked lobbies, each season is cut into two splits and each split will have a static map. For unranked lobbies, the maps rotate every few hours throughout the day. As of Season 11: Escape, the unranked map rotation no longer contains all of the maps, with only two maps in rotation at a time.
Kings Canyon
Kings Canyon is the original Apex Legends map, available since the game launched. Located on the planet Solace, Kings Canyon features a variety of environments and locations. The middle section of the map features a river flowing through it in a grassy mountain environment. The south and southwest parts of the map feature a desert biome, with limited foliage.
The original version of Kings Canyon was home to one of the hottest drop spots in Apex Legends, Skull Town. Skull Town was a small area, tightly packed with buildings and loot located in the southwest region of Kings Canyon, causing tons of players to drop there. Skull Town was accidentally destroyed in Season 5 by Loba, and the destruction of the landmark took out Thunderdome and South Settlement too. South Settlement was replaced by Salvage, but no point of interest was added for Skull Town and Thunderdome, making Apex Legends’ smallest map even smaller.
The current version of Kings Canyon sees a ton of firefights funneled in the main canyon in the center of the map. The latest version of Kings Canyon came during Season 8, which saw the addition of Fuse to the game. In order to make up for the lost map space when Skull Town, Thunderdome, and South Settlement were removed, the top part of Kings Canyon was opened up with Crash Site. Season 8 also replaced Slum Lakes with Spotted Lakes and removed loot bunkers from the map.
World’s Edge
World’s Edge was the second battle royale map added to the game, launching as part of Season 3: Meltdown, which started October 1, 2019. World’s Edge is located on the volcanic planet Talos and features multiple volcanic areas. However, there is also a large icy portion of the map, with The Epicenter in the middle of the frozen waste. World’s Edge featured two new interactable features: geysers that work like balloons, launching legends back into the sky, and a train which used to move around the map carrying loot on the different cars. The trains no longer run but the cars are still scattered around the map.
World’s Edge also includes the first instance of PvE in Apex Legends’ battle royale mode with the addition of Bloodhound Trials. Added as a Town Takeover during the Old Ways event, the Bloodhound Trials includes a few supply bins but also lets players take on increasingly difficult rounds of Prowlers in order to win rare, epic, and legendary tier loot. World’s Edge also was the original home to the Mirage Voyage–a consistently hot spot to drop–before the floating party barrage temporarily moved to Kings Canyon in Season 7 and then crashed and became an Arenas map in Season 9.
The current version of World’s Edge was introduced in Season 10: Emergence, which saw Train Yard, Refinery, and Sorting Factory destroyed by the collapse of the Harvester. The new season added Lava Siphon, Climatizer, and Landslide.
Olympus
Olympus, the third battle royale map, was added at the start of Season 7: Ascension, which dropped on November 4, 2020, bringing a floating utopian city to the Apex Games. Olympus was originally created as an advanced city, where scientific minds could come together and work towards the betterment of society. An accident with phase runner technology caused the scientists to leave Olympus, transforming the floating city into a popular vacation spot for rich people before it was scooped up by Hammond Industries to be used for the Apex Games.
Olympus features a half-ring of Phase teleporters in the center of the map, allowing players to move quickly from one side to another with the Rift on one end and Hydroponics on the other. The southern end of the map includes several buildings and living areas like Bonsai Plaza, Icarus, and Orbital Cannon. The northern part of the map includes the more industrial parts of the map, with Turbine, Power Grid, and Docks.
Olympus has not undergone as many changes as Kings Canyon and World’s Edge, with only one new point of interest added since its release: Pathfinder’s Fight Night, a boxing ring in which players can only melee attack. Olympus also does not follow the “two halves” design of the previous maps. King’s Canyon is half desert, half forest, and World’s Edge is half ice, half fire. Olympus has one single cohesive design.
Storm Point
Storm Point is the fourth battle royale map that has been added to Apex Legends. The tropical island was added at the start of Season 11, which started November 2, 2021. Storm Point is the largest Apex Legends map to date–it’s 15% larger than World’s Edge, previously the largest map. It features beaches and tropical jungles, most of which is intercut by rivers. There are multiple buildings scattered throughout the map, some resembling jungle homes and others representing military facilities.
Storm Point introduces a few new gameplay elements and expands on old ones. The most notable new gameplay element is the addition of Gravity Cannons, which shoot legends across the map if they stand in them. These allow players to quickly move from one point to another, proving useful for those running from the ring or a bad firefight. Another major gameplay addition is the inclusion of PvE fights. Though World’s Edge introduced PvE elements first, Storm Point features these elements more prominently, with packs of prowlers and spiders scattered throughout the map–killing these creatures allows players to earn loot.
As for hot drop spots, Checkpoint on the northeastern part of the map features a facility suspended over a forest with tons of loot and supply bins that attract plenty of squads. Antenna in the southern part of the map features three buildings in a circular format, with a small area underneath them that also seems to be a popular spot for players to drop.
When is Apex Legends next map coming?
While Respawn has not officially announced the next battle royale map for Apex Legends just yet, there has been a pattern to when new maps have been released. Each new map has released at the start of the final season of each year. Assuming the seasons continue to be the same length, the next map will release sometime in late October or early November in 2022.
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