Apex Legends is about to reach the peak of its competitive season with the Apex Legends Global Series Championship on May 22.
Forty teams will be competing in both North America and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), while South America and both Asia Pacific North and South will feature 30 teams each.
All teams will begin the Championship in the group stage, where they’ll be divided into groups of 10 to compete in a round-robin schedule. From there, 20 teams will advance to the Championship Finals for each region. The Championship Finals will use a match point format and will award the entirety of the $1 million prize pool, split up between all the regions.
The Championship broadcast starts May 22 with the APAC North, South, and SA group stages, while NA and EMEA will begin their competitions on June 1.
Each region’s teams have been split into groups based on their total ALGS Points earned throughout the season, meaning the top seeds have been evenly separated. TSM, NRG, Complexity, and AimAssist, for example, are the top four seeds in NA and each occupy the top seed of their own individual groups for the opening round.
The same applies to other top teams like Gambit in EMEA, TI in APAC North, and Flying High eSports in SA.
Apex saw a steady rise in viewership for its esports scene over the last year, with the ALGS Winter Circuit Playoffs setting a new record for the franchise at an average viewership exceeding 100,000, according to Respawn. That’s an increase of more than 50 percent over the franchise’s previously most-watched competition. On the back of this growth, Electronic Arts and Respawn are working to improve the Apex esports viewing experience even further.
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The Winter Circuit Playoffs peaked at 162,636 and enjoyed an average viewership of 127,859 for the North American competition, in part thanks to Twitch drops being enabled for the first time during the event. This gave viewers a chance to earn high-end cosmetics by simply watching matches.
EA also implemented a free cam option for spectator mode so the broadcast team could get more creative and effectively track all the action in new, less restrictive ways. Top competitors were able to co-stream the event as well, which allowed viewers to closely follow their favorite teams and players instead of simply watching the official broadcast.
The ALGS Championship will implement many of these features and other improvements from May 22 to June 13.
