Apex Legends Legacy – the game’s upcoming ninth season – is due to begin next week. With its release, players will be getting a new Legend to play as, a new weapon, and more. However, it also includes a brand-new – and permanent – mode which could offer a totally different way to experience the game; Apex Legends Arenas.
What is Apex Legends Arenas?
Apex Legends Arenas may be the true headline feature of Apex Legends Legacy. Since release, Apex Legends has been a battle royale game, and its core 20-squad game has gone relatively unchanged. Certainly, Respawn have released a great many variant game modes, but almost all of these have been limited-time modes, each only available for a week or so. The core gameplay experience has never changed. Arenas is something completely different.
Arenas is a new round-based, 3v3 game mode. Similar to games like Valorant, players will spend resources in-between rounds to acquire and upgrade different weapons and equipment, before taking that gear into the next round. There is no respawn system in Arenas, although you can still revive fallen squadmates. A round ends once all players from one team have been eliminated. To win the match, your squad needs to win three rounds and must also be 2 points ahead of your opponents. If you reach a 9th round without a team taking a 2-point lead, the conditions change to sudden death. Whichever team wins the 9th round wins the match.
Another big change to gameplay in Arenas is that the Legends’ abilities have a limited number of uses. (Instead of recharging like normal.) You’ll be able to purchase extra charges along with your gear in-between rounds. As you would expect, Arenas doesn’t take place on the full Apex Legends maps. Rather, it features a series of far smaller self-contained maps, each featuring a few lootable containers. These hold both healing items and 200 materials which can be spent in-between rounds. You’ll also get 75 materials for each enemy kill. As a round progresses, a miniature ring will close, and weapon care packages will drop into the map.