Interview: Apex Legends' new map is inspired by Cyberpunk 2077

We chat to Respawn Entertainment about Apex Legends Season 22: Shockwave, E-District, gameplay changes, and more.

E-District / EA

“So yes, actually, Cyberpunk 2077 was an early inspiration,” Apex Legends world director Eduardo Agostini tells GLHF in regards to the game’s new map, E-District. “Our level designer had an itch to build a city that evoked some similar flavors. We went after a multicultural aesthetic, with Japan being our primary look.”

E-District is only the sixth map to enter Apex Legends after 22 seasons, and on the surface, that’s the biggest new feature. In our full Apex Legends: Shockwave preview we cover the finer changes, but if you don’t have an eye for the details in Apex, then hey, new map! E-District is densely packed, and it’s going to effect how players engage with one another and the pace of each match drastically.

“I think that you’ll encounter some combat situations that were much rarer in the other maps, and I think it will spark players’ interest in running more hyper-CQC weapons than you normally would on our longer-range maps,” lead game designer Eric Canavese explains. “I do expect some play styles to shift, and shotgun enthusiasts are going to feel right at home.”

Akimbo Mozambiques. / EA

Shotgun and SMG stocks are way up in E-District then, but one of the most exciting weapon changes to arrive in season 22 has to be the new akimbo options for the P2020 and Mozambique. “I definitely think we’ll see P2020s and Mozambiques closing out games when those final rings happen,” Canavese says. “The goal was; ‘what if people were using P2020s and Mozambiques to unironically finish a game?’ And I believe we’ve struck gold here.”

Akimbo weapons are a fan-favorite in almost every game they’ve ever appeared in – I still have a soft spot for dual-wielding SMGs in Halo 2 – and it’s been a heavily requested feature for Apex Legends since its inception. “A very long time – years – we’ve been wanting to get something like this into the game,” Canavese explains. “But finding the right design space and the right execution on akimbo that works for Apex, the pacing of Apex, the combat ranges and styles that we have… It was not a trivial task to get existing weapons to fit, and achieve the goals we had of being more meta.”

An Apex squad. / EA

But what if you’re not an experienced Apex Legends player who can use and abuse the latest meta changes as soon as they drop? If you’ve been out of the game for a while, or you’re Apex-curious, the team at Respawn Entertainment has been taking steps to ensure that you can jump in and get up to speed faster than ever thanks to numerous gameplay tweaks and one big new mode for the uninitiated: Bot Royale.

It does exactly what it says on the tin — Bot Royale allows you to drop into a map with your friends and immediately start looting, shooting, and testing out new strategies as NPC enemy teams roam the map. New players can level up to level ten in this mode, and can even get help from their more experienced friends, giving everyone a new space to practice either the very basics or high-level strategies in a more relaxed environment.

A team in combat. / EA

“While we’ve had bots in the game for a while, it was a more recent decision to try to harness the power of those bots to create a safer space for newer players, or low-skilled player more specificially,” lead progression designer Chris “C4” Cleroux explains. “We saw a mix of new players and experienced players coming together – as you would like to sherpa your friends into the game – but it was creating a very mixed experience for players playing on their own, or with a group of new players, and that could lead to negative experiences.

“This created a much clearer game mode and platform that is dedicated to those new, low-skill players, or even players that want to take a break. [...] We’re hoping players can leverage this as the exploration space, but in the context of a smaller, faster, but still full BR experience.”

Bot Royale probably won’t see too much use from high-skill players unless they’re executing team strategies with their squad, but new adjustments like changes to Aim Flinch and Aim Assist will affect players at all skill levels, even if less experienced players might not notice it.

Aiming-down-sights in Apex. / EA

“Aim flinch is a feedback mechanism to know you’re being shot, and we have other vectors of doing that,” Canavese tells us. “Removing it is gonna make situations that were difficult to understand – who’s shooting you, where are you being shot from – because there’s just so much feedback happening on your screen [easier to understand]. [...] Our pro players are so talented that I’m not sure it’s going to change much for them, except just make the game more fun to play because you don’t have to deal with noise.”

The same applies to the Aim Assist changes, which see the strength of controllers nerfed slightly to level the playing field with mouse and keyboard players, which don’t have any assistance. They’re rawdogging aiming, so to speak. “If you’re a pro controller player, you’re probably going to be able to compensate for this,” Canavese explains. “People are going to overreact, in the beginning, and they’re going to throw their controllers away and get back to M&K, but if you’ve got years of experience on a controller, I don’t think you’re going to switch input types for this.

“This is designed to level the playing field and tap down that peak at those ranges where controllers just outperform – we know the data, we know the range data, weapon type data, scope data, and how it relates specifically to Aim Assist. This was done in a calculated way that retains its strength as an input method, but so that in those specific scenarios, it doesn’t vastly outperform.”

Recon Legends have also had significant changes. / EA

If you’re a brand new player there’s never been a better time to try out Apex Legends than in Season 22: Shockwave, and high-skill players will see some pretty significant changes that they’ll have to adjust their muscle memory to account for in the near future. All of that and more comes to Apex Legends on August 6, 2024.