Respawn have revealed how often Apex Legends fans can expect a new battle royale map, explaining their process, and how their map designs have changed with Apex’s age.
Apex Legends fans have become accustomed to having a selection of battle royale maps, alongside the smaller environments designed specifically for Arenas mode. Season 11 – dropping on November 2 – will bring a new tropical map known as Storm Point. It joins Kings Canyon, World’s Edge, and Olympus as the fourth battle royale map in Apex.
Kings Canyon is Apex’s OG map, having been present since launch back in February 2019. World’s Edge came with Season 3 and Olympus with Season 7. A pattern is therefore pretty hard to discern.
However, speaking ahead of the Season 11 launch, Respawn opened up on their map design and let players know exactly what to expect.
“Our cadence on BR map releases continues to remain the same,” Respawn said, “releasing new maps at a pace that really lets players get familiar with each new setting and environment. Giving players time to focus on specific locations, and learn the ins and outs of each map.”
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There have been some complaints from players over the rotation of old maps in Apex, with fans arguing for the permanent addition of certain locations. Respawn, though, seem committed to keeping all their maps in the game.
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They continued: “Our earlier maps were designed with a singular experience in mind, but with Storm Point in mind, we have created a map that will seamlessly evolve alongside our live service updates for years down the road.”
Once again then, it seems that long-term planning is at the heart of Respawn’s development process. They have already confirmed their development schedule is roughly a year ahead of the game, so we can expect a host of new content in the near future.
Maps seem to be planned for every three or four seasons, which has been the case previously, allowing players some time to get to know their new environments before being sent anywhere new.
For now, though, players can get excited about Ash, Storm Point and all of Season 11: Escape.