The Best Apex Legends Season & How They Changed the Game
Best Apex Legends Seasons Changes, Map Updates, Story, Legend Additions
- Some of the biggest changes in Apex Seasons revolve around the addition of new maps, which will affect both casual and ranked players.
- Season 5, 6 and 7 were the golden age of Apex Legends as developers were putting out great content for players of all types.
When it comes to games like Apex Legends and games as a service, players have to live through constant ups and downs as the developers support the game through major updates and smaller tweaks. These changes aren’t always welcomed by the community and some Seasons of Apex Legends are better received than others.
Here is our list of the Best Seasons of Apex Legends and what they brought to the game and how it changed things.
Season 3: Meltdown
Early Apex Legends was a great time for veteran players. The game was still very fresh, the Battle Passes were just starting to amp up. The new Legends were interesting and unique and the Dev Team was just getting started with Limited Time Modes and Holiday Events.
But the biggest icon from the early days was World’s Edge. It was the first new map introduced and to this day, pros and casual players alike consider it the GOAT. The devs were able to take all they learned from Kings Canyon and improve upon it with World’s Edges design. It remained the only map used in competitive ALGS until Storm Point was added in Season 11.
Season 5: Fortune’s Favor
There was no way to tell at the time, but Season 5 and the addition of Loba would have a profound impact on the universe of Apex Legends and its characters. It was the first season that really dove into and explored what a narrative looked like in a competitive game like Apex Legends and how to build a world around the characters who lived in it.
The Quest System was introduced with ‘The Broken Ghost’ that told the story of Loba trying to get her revenge on Revenant. It had single-player PvE elements, interactions between characters in-game were added which helped to flesh out individual character relationships.
It was the next step in creating a fandom around the game, the likes of which had only really been seen by games like League of Legends and Overwatch.
Season 5 also added in Respawn Beacons, something so popular that even Fortnite would follow suit and add to their own game.
Loba from Apex Legends.
Season 6: Boosted
One of the biggest changes and best quality of life updates came in Season 6, though it was technically added much earlier in Season 4. During the Season 4 event System Override, Apex Legends introduced the Evo Shield, shields that leveled up the more damage you dealt.
Prior to Season 6, if you wanted a better shield you’d have to just hope you found one laying around or take it off the death box of someone you bested. But in Season 6, if you dealt damage you could get to a Red Evo Shield.
This made longer range weapons a lot more valuable since poking and dealing damage at range, even if you didn’t get a kill, had value now. Prior to this the only reason to get involved in long range poking was to try and wear down an opponent's resources.
Season 7: Ascension
With every new map added in Apex Legends, the developers learned a little more about what made them fun. Olympus was a welcome change from World’s Edge and Kings Canyon and a step up in the overall aesthetics of design as well.
OIympus didn’t just look like a big mishmash of Points of Interests, but had an overall theme that really brought the whole map together as one.
It also introduced us to the Space Mommy Horizon who would see significant play and still continues to be a major meta pick to this day. Tridents were also introduced to the game giving players a new way to traverse around the map without breaking gameplay as vehicles in battle royales can sometimes be quite disruptive.
Overhead view of Olympus in Apex Legends.
Apex Legends\Respawn Entertainment
Season 9: Legacy
This season brought a lot of interesting changes to the game, the first being the addition of Valkyrie who would shake up both the in-game meta and the in-game lore. Valkyrie was the first major connection to Titanfall Lore being the daughter of one of the antagonists in Titanfall 2.
Season 9 also kicked off one of the biggest moments in Apex Legends lore as it started a complicated love triangle between Loba, Bangalore and Valkyrie, a story that is still playing out in Season 19. This flurry of relationship issues still divides players in the fandom on the same level that Civil War did with Marvel fans.
Putting the narrative aside, Season 9 also introduced the first major game mode to be added to the game, Arenas. Prior to this, Limited-Time Modes were introduced on occasion with major events, but Arenas was a permanent new mode that would eventually even get a ranked mode. It showed that the devs were willing to expand the scope of the game and take risks.
Ultimately, it proved too much to balance properly and focus on the main game and was removed in Season 16.
Finally in Season 9, starter kits were added to the battle royale. Instead of dropping completely unequipped players now left the dropship with level 1 Evo Shields, two syringes and two shield cells.
Valkyrie in Season 9 of Apex Legends.
Apex Legends\Respawn Entertainment.
Season 16: Revelry
Despite Revelry being the first Season of Apex Legends that didn’t give us a new Legend, it did bring some major changes and overhauls to the way Legends work. Players were introduced to the Class-based system and saw each Legend assigned a role. It was fresh and made every Legend feel a little bit newer and more interesting.
The developers also added in the Mixtape Playlist, giving players other in-game options besides just the battle royale. Prior to this, unless an event was happening there was no Limited-Time Modes to participate in. There was no good place to warm-up, but Mixtape gave us Death Match, Gun Run and Control on a permanent rotation.
It was an excellent addition and one the game probably should have had way earlier when you look at games like Fortnite which offers several ways for players to play.
