Apex Legends is over five years old, but it is not showing any signs of slowing down soon. Apex Legends Season 21, dubbed Upheaval, launches on May 7, and it's bringing with it plenty of new and returning features. Among other things, Apex Legends Season 21 is introducing the new Skirmisher Legend, Alter, and bringing significant changes to Broken Moon. On the gameplay side of things, Solos mode is coming back for a limited time and Re-Queue will appear in more game modes.

After a Season 21 presentation, Game ZXC spoke with several developers at Respawn about everything coming to Apex Legends, including events lead Mike Button and lead progression designer Chris "C4" Cleroux.

Apex Legends' Season 21 Solos Mode Explained

Apex Legends' Solos mode last appeared during Season 2, lasting two weeks from August 13 and August 27. In the time since, Respawn has been adamant that Apex Legends' solo mode was never coming back, and it made sense. Apex Legends' core gameplay is all about teamwork, and while Duos works, Trios offers the best balance for its gameplay. However, consistent player feedback made Respawn change its mind, according to Button. Now, Season 21 is bringing back Solos mode as a 6-week limited-time takeover of Duos.

Solos will significantly change the gameplay loop, though Respawn is adding a few new features to it to balance things out to some degree.

  • Circle sizes will be adjusted
  • Fully-kitted items will appear more frequently.
  • The total player count will be reduced from 60 to 50.
  • Battle Sense - this feature will inform players when another player is within 50 meters of them, though it is omnidirectional and doesn't pinpoint exactly.
    • Battle Sense, Button explained, is meant to help replace the missing call-outs from teammates. It also helps legends who pop abilities based on call-outs. For example, a Bloodhound player may not pop their scan unless a teammate calls out an enemy, which would put them at a disadvantage in Solos without this feature. It doesn't replace callouts, but it may help a little nonetheless.

  • Players will auto-heal some lost HP outside of combat and with player kills.
  • Players will have 1 Respawn Token that brings them back from death. After four rounds, anyone with a Respawn Token will see it converted to EVO.

Button explained that the number one reason for its return is player feedback, as it has continued to grow in momentum over the past five years. At the same time, Button added that this game mode fits in thematically with the season name of Upheaval and things going on with Alter's storyline. It fits thematically, and while that isn't the main reason for the change, the timing was right.

" I think the reason was the player feedback. We've had that for quite a while, but it was really growing in momentum. I think that was really reason number one, and it was really as simple as that. I do think a reason number two is thematic, although that's less of a priority when we are making a gameplay decision like this."

Apex Legends Season 21 Bringing Back Re-Queue

Another exciting feature coming to some degree in Season 21 is Re-Queue. As fans recall, the Straight Shot LTM in Apex Legends allowed players to queue up without having to return to the lobby, letting them hop back into the game a little faster. While it won't be available in every game mode at launch, Cleroux did confirm it's coming,

"We do have Re-Queue coming online in season 21 for all pubs BR modes, as well as Mixtape. We're also exploring work that needs to be done for additional modes in the future for that. There's continuous work to make improvements to those systems, but players will be able to experience it like they did previously in Straight Shot."

Apex Legends season 21 is taking a nice look at the Legend meta with Alter's introduction, the weapon meta, and how maps influence those. Alongside those, there are new additions like the Solos LTM and Re-Queue which should, hopefully, make Season 21 as good, if no better than, any season before it.