Apex Legends Legacy Launch Trailer Releases Tomorrow, May Reveal Brand-New Arena Mode

Looks like Apex Legends is getting a major brand-new mode, something akin to Fortnite adopting a battle royale mode–a move that transformed the game forever. It most likely has to do with the Arena teaser that you can discover in Apex Legends right now, and we’ll seemingly learn more via the Apex Legends Legacy launch trailer that debuts tomorrow, April 22.

“Few game devs recognized this lesson from Fortnite: You can delight players and drive massive growth for a game by adding a new / different genre as a ‘mode’ and supporting it as a full game,” Respawn director of communication Ryan K. Rigney tweeted. “League of Legends did it with [Teamfight Tactics].”

Rigney then says that the Apex Legends Legacy launch trailer is coming out tomorrow, though he adds it’s “unrelated” to the vague observation he made about games being able to transform for the better by adopting new genres as game modes. Sure it isn’t, Rigney. Sure it isn’t.

Something transformative for Apex Legends has been teased for a long time. Back at the start of Season 8: Mayhem, game director Chad Grenier wrote that “later this year, [Respawn] will launch new ways to play [Apex Legends] that take us beyond battle royale.”

Additionally, there are several in-game hints that something called “The Arena” will be coming to Apex Legends in the upcoming season. If you loot care packages during a match, you’ll find an invitation that unlocks a phone on the lobby menu that then sends you on a hunt for holographic symbols throughout both Kings Canyon and Olympus. Finding all of them unlocks an elevator in the Firing Range that takes you to a secret area, where Ash–who we haven’t seen in-game since the end of Season 5’s Quest–asks, “Do you think you have what it takes to impress me? We’ll find out soon. The Arena awaits.”

Given Ash’s connection to Titanfall, fans have begun speculating that the new mode could be something along the lines of Titanfall 2‘s team deathmatch modes, like Attrition or Live Fire. Though it’s worth pointing out, however, that Respawn has already experimented with other types of game modes in Apex Legends through limited-time events–Zombies/Infected with Shadowfall and Shadow Royale, Horde with Quest, and King Of The Hill with Winter Express.