Last week’s action-packed launch trailer for Apex Legends’ season 11, Escape, showed off a first look at the new map, called Storm Point. Another video dropped yesterday showing more details of the environment, various points of interest, and gameplay on the new map. EA also published a blog post by Rodney Reece, the designer at Respawn responsible for World’s Edge and now Storm Point, that explains the map in detail.
Storm Point will comes out on or around the debut of season 11, which arrives on live servers Nov. 2. The balmy climate and beaches on Storm Point are a big departure from the combination of dense urban infrastructure and open lawns on the last map released in Apex, Olympus.
Some of the map has the feel of a sunny tropical island, covered in beachfront and shallow water. Other parts of it are dense, dark jungle, and there’s also a mountain area.
Reece’s post explains that Storm Point is “a long-forgotten IMC research base,” and confirms that the new map is roughly 15 percent larger than World’s Edge. Redeploy balloons familiar to player have been replaced by a new repositioning mechanic called Gravity Cannons, which will launch legends across the map in the direction the cannon is facing.
Storm Point, on the planet Gaea, is the location of a crashed ship called the IMS Hestia. That’s the same ship and location featured in a previous teaser of the new map that allowed players to listen to a transmission from Bangalore, asking for help.
Besides the wreck of the IMS Hestia, officially called Shipfall, there are a variety of other points of interest. Barometer is the central area of Storm Point, a large research facility with multiple levels and lots of loot. Command Center is an underground bunker inside Storm Point’s mountain that has the longest network of ziplines the Apex games have seen so far. The Antenna is an industrial structure with catwalks above a communications dish. Checkpoint is a large building set back in the jeep jungle. Lightning Rod, which sits on the peak of Storm Point’s mountain, is the highest location on the map. Storm Catcher is a giant installation with plenty of vertical space. North Pad is a launch site that has a network of trenches.
There’s also Cenote Cave, The Mill, The Wall, Highpoint, Thunder Watch, Cascade Falls, Launch Pad, Fish Farms, and Gale Station.
That makes 17 different points of interest, putting it on par with maps like Olympus and World’s Edge.
Like Olympus, Storm Point features Tridents, the hovering cars with room for three players that can make getting around the map much easier at the cost of making your team a much bigger target.
The launch trailer for Escape also showed a variety of hostile wildlife on the island. The blog post confirms that Storm Point will feature Wildlife Nests that will allow players to get valuable loot after taking on a variety of dangerous creatures. Wildlife Nests will be marked on the map, and their locations won’t change.
Prowlers, familiar to players from World’s Edge, live in dens on the island and will aggressively defend their territory. Flyers are another familiar species that live on Storm Point and will have the same mechanic of carrying death boxes in their talons. Videos also showed a third variety of dangerous fauna, a giant spider with a brood of smaller (but still quite large) spiders.
The blog post clarifies that spider eggs will be scattered throughout the island, and damaging the eggs will spawn a horde of spiders that spit web projectiles before attacking from closer range. Killing Prowlers, Spiders, and even Flyers will now give players a small amount of energy for their EVO shields, a change from previous seasons. Prowlers and Spiders will also drop ammo, gun attachments, and other consumables, while clearing out an entire Wildlife Nest will reward players with crafting materials. These AI enemies will certainly create a new dynamic for the battle royale in its newest season.
