Season 22 of Apex Legends has already given both new and veteran players plenty of new experiences with the addition of its Revival respawn mechanic and its new Bot Royale training mode. However, it seems it’s not finished yet, as developer Respawn has surprisingly teased that another new mode called Knockout Battle Royale is on the way.
Tucked away during coverage of the final day of the Apex Legends Global Series Year 4 Split 2 Playoffs is a quick segment with Respawn developers. Here they comment on a few of the big meta changes that have been made to the FPS game in Season 22, but lead weapons designer Eric Canavase also reveals some early details about this brand new limited-time mode.
“Knockout BR is a fun new twist on the battle royale,” Canavase says. “It’s a new way to play with new objectives in the game to fight over. It’s got a lot of interesting ways for you to progress through the match. It’s kinda a little bit of something for everyone.
“Throughout the game there’s going to be a lot of capture points that spawn. You’re going to fight over these and you’re also going to be earning points through getting kills and team squad wipes and that kinda stuff. You’ll be gathering these points, and at some point when the round ends, the bottom five teams are going to get knocked out.”
With a points leaderboard being the prerequisite for being eliminated rather than your squad being wiped out, Knockout will also continue the recent trend of giving you more chances to make a difference.
“In Knockout you’ve got infinite respawns,” Canavase explains. “You can always come back and if things aren’t going well there you can respawn somewhere else, kinda fly over and take the fight to one of the other capture points. So you’ve got lots of opportunities to make it to the end, you just gotta stay good.”
This certainly sounds like an interesting premise for a mode, and it blends the objective-based elements of Apex’s Control mode with the urgency and high stakes of traditional battle royale action by periodically booting out the worst-performing teams.
These were the only details shared about Knockout for now, and there was no indication about when the mode would arrive. With Season 22 already being so content-rich, this could be one for Season 23, but it does equally seem very early to be teasing a new mode if it’s not intended for the current season.
Apex Legends continues to be one of the best battle royale games out there, but if it’s not up your alley or you’re looking for a new challenge, our free PC games guide has some great multiplayer titles that won’t cost you a dime.
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