Apex Legends Season 5: Fortune’s Favor got rid of everyone’s favorite hot drop, Skulltown, but fans have come up with a new way to bring the location back for a much-needed mode.
The early days of Apex Legends were marked by incessant fire fights throughout Skulltown, a concentrated pack of buildings with loot, corridors and, most importantly, what seemed like half of the lobby itching for action.
But Skulltown and the nearby Thunderdome are both gone now, as the original Kings Canyon map has found its battleground centered elsewhere toward the northeastern section of the map—where the Offshore Rig and Capacitor locations have been added.
This has led fans of the game to speculate over how a closed-off Skulltown could feature as a smaller map fit for different modes than the game’s traditional three-person squad battle royale.
In particular, Redditor ‘cow_durr’ noted that Skulltown could be parceled off, enclosed by rocky cliffs so that players could compete in smaller competitions.
While they suggested this move as a means of supplementing the Firing Range, granting players a more realistic opportunity to compete amongst their friends in a game-like environment rather than the location’s obvious lean toward an aim-training terrain.
This idea is reasonable, as buddies could hop into a limited training mode and engage in custom deathmatches to warm up aim, and generally have a silly old blast in a part of the map that many already miss dearly.
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But there are other applications that could fit a smaller map type. With a closed-off map in a dense area like Skulltown, Respawn Entertainment would be able to test out a few experimental modes that many in the community have been curious to try out.
Among such modes, the most interesting are a public solos battle royale, a kill-based deathmatch, and a solos gun game. The possibility of a smaller squad-based BR with something like just five squads and loadouts upon deployment would also be intriguing.
In the past, Respawn has tried out solo modes and modes where you deploy with shields already equipped, but neither received enough positive feedback to fit into the game permanently.
A smaller map could solve this, as the problems of inaction in solos-based modes are solved by forcing players into a more concentrated area. With the versatility of Skulltown’s environment allowing for tremendous mobility and positioning potential, utilizing everything from rooftops and stairways to small fences, the area suits itself well to the type of action players would love to warm up with.
The RNG of looting is essential to a battle royale but, as proved by Call of Duty’s Warzone, it’s fun when players are able to deploy with weapons and pick out the specific weapons they’d like to play with (as seen in the game’s Plunder mode and purchasable loadouts).
While players will always want to drop into full-fledged Apex Legends matches on the larger map, a smaller, fan-favorite map would allow players to drop in and practice their gunplay and movement techs.
Ultimately, the game’s guns, legends and mobility are the game’s selling point and experimenting with a smaller map would allow developers to let fans embrace those differentiating factors more immediately and in unique ways.
