Apex Legends' New Season Feels Like a Trip Down Memory Lane, But With a Twist

There I was, dropping into Kings Canyon like I’d done a thousand times before, but something felt… different. The air had that old spark, you know? The kind that makes your heart race even before the first gunshot. I pinged a spot on the map that looked hauntingly familiar – a cluster of buildings perched on a dusty hill – and my squadmate let out a groan over comms. “Oh no, not this again,” he muttered, half-joking, half-wary. But I was already grinning. The 2026 season had just rolled out, and Respawn had somehow bottled nostalgia and poured it right back into the arena. Only, as I’d soon learn from the dev team themselves, this wasn’t exactly the Skull Town we remembered.

I’d had a chance to chat with Jeff Shaw, the lead level designer, before the season launched. When I accidentally called the new POI ‘Skull Town 2.0,’ he was quick to set the record straight. “We didn’t bring back Skull Town,” he said, almost like he’d been waiting for someone to say that. “It’s very much inspired by Skull Town, but it’s not Skull Town, and we want to be clear on that.” He wasn’t kidding. Up close, Relic felt tighter, more focused, with just enough cover to turn every corner into a potential deathtrap. It scratched that same chaotic itch without letting the entire lobby dogpile into one spot. Well, mostly.

The truth is, I remember why Skull Town got the axe way back when. Shaw told me straight up: it was “unhealthy” for the game. Practically the whole server used to land there, turning every match into a coin flip of who grabbed a gun first. “The decision was made to just say, ‘okay, let's just make the map a bit smaller, annihilate this POI that is causing a lot of problems and start rebuilding parts of the map from there,’” he explained. And after that? The landing distribution became a lot healthier, like a balanced breakfast. I had to ask about Fragment – everyone asks about Fragment – but all I got was a cryptic “no comment.” I guess some wounds take longer to heal.

On drop day, I couldn’t help but laugh at how many squads still swarmed Relic. Old habits die hard, right? But Shaw had anticipated that. “Apart from bringing it back for nostalgia, this is the type of gameplay people really love and that they miss from the map,” he admitted. Then he dropped the real reason: the south side of Kings Canyon was a mess of funnels. You’d rotate from Octane’s Gauntlet to Market and then get squeezed into Caustic Treatment whether you liked it or not. It was like the map itself was forcing a boxing match. Relic was supposed to spread people out, give us breathing room.

And they didn’t stop there. Remember Broken Relay? They turned it into Basin, adding more buildings and better loot without messing with the tier balance too much. I landed there a few times just to see the glow up – it felt like a whole new neighborhood, and the medium-tier loot meant I wasn’t instantly stomped by some squad with maxed-out gear. Little changes, big impact. My inner loot goblin was satisfied.

But here’s the thing about Kings Canyon: it’s still the smallest map. Smaller map means third parties come faster than your mom’s “Are you winning, son?” text. Shaw knows this, and it was honestly refreshing to hear him talk about it. “We look at third parties as a healthy part of the game,” he said, “but when third parties are happening too much in certain areas, we look at that as being a little bit of an issue.” He pointed to Hillside Outpost – they stripped some buildings to stop teams from hunkering down after a fight. And the redeploy balloons in the center? Gone. No more fast-traveling into someone’s backline like an uninvited plus-one. The choke point between Bunker, The Cage, and Hillside was partially filled too. Now if you want to crash a fight on the other side of the mountain, you’d better have a Valkyrie, or be ready for a long walk. I kind of love it. Fights feel more earned, less like a revolving door of pain.

Speaking of earned, let’s talk about the level cap. For ages, hitting level 500 felt like hitting a brick wall. Aaron Rutledge, a systems designer, told me why it took so long to push it further. “I think it's just what percentage of the playerbase is near that cap,” he said. “500 takes a while. And yes, there's people who play this as a career and they hit 500 very quickly, but that's not true for the entire playerbase.” I felt that. I have a day job, man. Still, the new prestige system that essentially stretches the cap to 2,000 is a godsend. Now when I hit 500, I reset to level 1, my badge gets a fancy new color, and I get to feel that sweet, sweet progression again. Plus, those Apex packs – 544 total if you grind to the top – mean I’m finally, finally guaranteed a Heirloom. Rutledge smiled when he said, “We wanted to give everybody a chance to get that feeling of the red Apex pack opening experience.” I might cry when it happens.

Now, the guns. I’m still not over the changes even though I’ve had weeks to adjust. The Rampage and Bocek Bow are in the care package now, and when I complained to game designer Eric Canavese, he promised the bow would be buffed “much more akin to the bow that we released for that very first week.” That first week was insane, so I’m cautiously thrilled. They even tested the Rampage staying fully charged out of the crate – “We even tried that it was free to charge,” he said – but it turned every fight into a thermite-fueled nightmare, so instead you just get a free Thermite grenade with it. Fine. Fair.

The Wingman swallowing sniper ammo hurts my soul, though. “It was just too easy to run with the heavy ammo and have the ability to spam with two stacks for the whole game,” Canavese explained. I get it, I get it. But my muscle memory keeps reaching for heavy mags that don’t exist anymore. And the Spitfire on light ammo? Feels like a whole new beast. The RE-45 with Hammerpoints is back in the replicator, and I’ve been crafting it every game, just like they intended. It’s a neat experiment that makes early game crafting feel meaningful.

Then there’s the gold gear shuffle. Self-resurrection is gone. Gone! The gold knockdown shield now gives the old backpack perk – you revive teammates with more health. And the gold backpack? Stack three big heals instead of two. I won’t lie, I initially raged about losing self-res. It was my ticket to clutching a 1v3 and feeling like a superhero. But when I pressed Canavese on it, he was honest. “We listen to our community, and it's important that we show that we're listening, but we're not going to do everything that the community wants. This is something that we feel will benefit the health of the game, the ranked integrity, and professional play across the board.” He even left the door open: “If it doesn't work, maybe we'll go back to self res, who knows?” I respect that. It’s refreshing to see a dev team that’s not scared to experiment.

At the end of the day, that’s what this season feels like: an experiment wrapped in a warm blanket of memories. I land in Relic, get chased through Basin, mourn the Wingman’s ammo, and laugh when a teammate complains about no more self-res. It’s Apex, ever-evolving, always keeping me on my toes. And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Catch you in the arena, legend.