Realm: A New Kind of Competitive Apex Legends
As the Apex Legends Global Series continues its Year 3 Pro League, a third party tournament organizer has stepped back up to the plate to bring something new to the professional, competitive space. Realm is looking to offer a unique competitive experience to the most dedicated Apex Legends players who want to push the boundaries of their skill.
Realm Isn’t New to Apex Legends
If the name sounds familiar, that’s because this isn’t Realm's first foray into the competitive Apex Legends scene. Back in August of 2020 Realm headed the Summit Series, a series of weekly tournaments that would have pitted North American and European teams against one another. The first culmination of that inaugural season was well received with around 16,000 average viewers. But it didn’t seem like it was meant to be as Realm announced via Twitter that the 2021 Summit Series wouldn’t happen.
Realm is Back with Realm SoloQ League
The Realm SoloQ League Season 1 launched early in April on the 3rd with plans to run through July 3rd. Unlike normal ranked play in Apex Legends or the Apex Pro League in the ALGS, Realm is strictly Solo Queue, offering an alternative type of competitive experience to both vanilla ranked and the ALGS.
The format is similar to what CS:GO pros and fans would expect from a FACEIT or ESEA tournament. It’s the next step between vanilla Ranked and the top tier professional experience.
Analysts and Pros from the ALGS are already saying good things about Realm's structure and the place it can fill in the competitive Apex Legends scene. As Jon “Falloutt” Kefaloukos pointed out on Twitter back in February, there’s a large gap in the competitive ladder that allows players to go from Ranked Apex Legends to the ALGS Challenger Circuit. This week he amended that statement saying that after just 15 minutes of realizing what Realm was trying to do, he was sold.
How Does Realm Work?
The Realm competition series takes place during the week, running Monday through Friday and looks to avoid any dates that may conflict with the ALGS. For the inaugural Season 1, participation is being limited to 500 players and will require a rank of Predators only including finalists from Challengers Circuit and Pro League Qualifiers.
The Realm SoloQ League Season 1 also has a huge prize pool of $150,000, which will be distributed through daily prizing, end-of-season rewards and tournaments. For a full prize pool breakdown you can check out the About Us and Prizing section of the Realm website.
The biggest change to note between both Ranked Apex Legends and the ALGS, is the SoloQ Format. There are no teams in the Realm competitive series. Players who are accepted will participate in custom lobbies where they are randomly paired with other Realm competitors at the specified times Monday through Friday. This eliminates the pain of random Ranked Apex Legends where SoloQ players have to try wrangle together two people that could have no intention of working together or could care less what their rank is, all the while trying to go up against a full three stack that might include top streamers and pro players.
Bowen "Monsoon" Fuller who plays for Complexity in the ALGS, mentioned on Twitter just how much fun he had in the first day of Realm’s SoloQ series.
And Realm is committed to creating a competitive environment to support the professional Apex Scene. If a player is inactive for a week during the series, they will be removed. The Realm twitter account reiterated jokingly that the strong will survive and plans to make cuts saying that Realm isn’t a place to earn more followers, but to increase your skill.
Will Realm Hold?
The biggest question, however, is whether or not Realm will survive past its first few seasons. All of the most successful leagues in esports are run by the publishers of the games. While there are plenty of third party organizers that find success, Realm’s first foray with the Series Summit also saw some success but still fell by the wayside.
With interest from both the professional crowd and the player base, Realm has so far been met with open arms. They also have plans to expand outside of North America and the EMEA region. Beyond that, they’d also like to give players of all skill levels the chance to find the same competition as the higher tier players, by providing tiers of competition all the way down to the entry level.
Where and how to watch Realm’s Apex Legends SoloQ
Unlike the ALGS, there is no broadcast for the Realm SoloQ Series, but any pros or streamers who are participating are free to stream their matches. If you’d like to find out if any of your favorite players are participating or streaming you can consult the Leaderboards.
The Realm SoloQ Series takes place until July 3rd and runs Mondays through Fridays except on days the ALGS is operating. North American players play from 2 PM to 8PM EST and the EMEA region plays from 2 PM to 8 PM CET.
How to Join Realm Apex
For anyone who is hoping to join in for the Realm competitive series, the first season is already underway. Entry was limited to 500 participants and required a rank of Predator or having been a finalist in the Challenger’s Circuit or Pro League Qualifiers. However, participants can be cut and they’ll be looking to keep the player cap at 500 which means new entrants may be permitted. Future seasons will expand the number of participants. You can find out more by joining the Realm Pro League discord server.
