It's not too often Apex Legends gets a new map, so each and every time is a huge deal for the community. The entire layout of the map not only affects how often battles take place, key rotations, and hot drops, but also how the Apex Legends character meta is realized.
Broken Moon is arriving alongside Apex Legends season 15 and the new character Catalyst. Following a preview event about everything coming in season 15, Game Rant spoke with Respawn Entertainment devs Jeff Shaw, Eduardo Agostini, and David Duong about Broken Moon, gifting, and stickers in Apex Legends.
Broken Moon is perhaps the biggest attraction to this season, but it makes a number of changes compared to past maps. It's more comparable to World's Edge in terms of size, as it seems Respawn found that to be the best size for firefight cadence and match length, but Respawn also took lessons from Apex Legends' Storm Point and Olympus. According to Jeff Shaw, Storm Point's sheer scale affects how players drop and how the matches play out there, which is fine for Storm Point but not every map.
Regarding Olympus, he said the team looked at "...death pits. We didn't want hard fails. We didn't want you to just drop off the map and die." Because of this, Broken Moon doesn't have as many death pits. Broken Moon is held together by a Stasis net, and in some areas (though perhaps not all), players are protected by these nets that will see Apex Legends players be updrafted when crossing them. This isn't necessarily new, as it brings to mind the lava pits of World's Edge, but it does mean that there are fewer hard-fail death pits on the map, which does seem to feature a lot of open space.
While comparisons to other Apex Legends maps are unavoidable, it's also important that every map has its distinct identity. For Broken Moon, part of that is its PoIs are larger in comparison to other maps. This means that, if there are a bunch of teams dropping in one place, there is more room to try to outmaneuver them and gear up more efficiently instead of fighting over a P2020. There is also the general motif of Broken Moon, as its decor focuses on some of the African inspirations associated with its planet Boreas, but also splits the map between "dark sides of the moon" and the beautiful nature of some of its maintained areas. When designing the map, Agostini stated that the idea of being surrounded by moonrocks, dead areas, and general moon features would be "depressing" if that was the only imagery associated with the map. It's definitely cool, but perhaps overwhelming if that's all it was. Thus, Broken Moon's motif of this major divide was born.
Furthermore, Shaw adds that Broken Moon's mobility is a stand-out feature. According to him, Respawn really leaned into "movement, rotations, making advances, making retreats, things like that." Part of that is Apex Legends' new ziprail system and how much faster some rotations are compared to past maps. Agostini also added that the ziprail system feels natural for players to move quickly from PoI to PoI. The ziprail system also adds a nice layer of chaos to combat and this mobility focus on Broken Moon, but there is some predictability, according to Shaw. There are stops, starts, and more that help players manage the ziprail system in terms of combat and movement.
Apex Legends Broken Moon Locations
Speaking of PoIs, here are some players can expect from the upcoming Apex Legends map:
- Terraformer - Massive, symmetrical structure that features a "king of the hill" design with a central area. 4 teams have "comfortable" landing spots.
- Stasis Net Array - Lore-wise, this location prevents moon debris from crashing down on Cleo and Boreas. There is a "central honeypot" of loot here.
- Atmostation and Backup Atmo - Covered in research buildings, a main tower structure, ziprails, and water silos.
- Perpetual Core - a huge area that supports big fights and multiple landings. The core is a big seat of power, but one with multiple angles for an attack.
- Bionomics - Circular structures with playable rooftops, vertical flank, and sneaky healing spots.
- The Divide - Vertical houses separated by bridges and ziprails. Described as a "fast-paced, high-energy location"
- Alpha Base - Lunar builds within a giant moon-crater.
- Eternal Gardens - Features the only jump tower on the moon, a strong rotation spot.
- Breaker Wharf - Includes parallel structures for multiple layers of verticality. A strong rotation spot.
- Production Yard - External yard with a huge core structure, T-shaped, with lots of loot everywhere but focused in another central honeypot.
- The Foundry - A central hub divided by two arms, with enough locations and loot to support 4 landing teams.
- Dry Gulch - asymmetrical location with multiple layers and angles for intense firefights
- Cultivation - a low-lying collection of circular greenhouses, with one seat of power.
- Promenades - Huge, vertical landmark with focused hallway fights and ziprails
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