EA and Respawn revealed its plan to make Apex a bonafied esport with the announcement of the “Apex Legends Global Series”. Apex Legends will have over 12 global events and 10 online events and will dole out over $3 million in prizes.
The Global Series also has four tiers of competition. The Online series is the entry point, where players will get their first taste of the scene and accrue points that can seed them for larger events. The Challenger series is stated to be locally based. Smaller events that will have between $25,000 and $75,000 prize pools and give out automatic berths in the next major. Premier events take the top online seeds from each region battling it out for over $100,000 in prizes and “advanced placement” in the upcoming Major, skipping over the winners of Challenger events. And lastly are the Majors where the best of the best from the Premier events will duke it out for over $500,000. The season will culminate in the Global Series Championship where 60 teams will vie for the title and $1 million.
One interesting addition to the Major and Championship events is the “Apex Predator” award. The player with the most kills over the course of the event will receive a cash bonus in addition to their tournament winnings. For the Majors the top dog can expect $8,000 and for the Championship its doubled to $16,000. If their is a tie, the prize is split between all players with the highest kill count.
The first two online events are already scheduled for Jan 25-27, 2020 and Feb 29-Mar 2, 2020. The first Major is slated to begin on March 13, 2020.
Norris’ Impressed Opinion: Apex is the only battle royale I’m even halfway decent at, so I’m happy to see some structure come to the game’s pro scene. I think the concept of the Apex Predator is really cool as well. I was worried about Apex when I saw how successful the Fortnite World Cup was. But this seems significantly more robust. Fornite can own the weekend of the World Cup but Apex, if they do it right, can get eyeballs to their games through the year.