Apex Legends follows in Fortnite OG’s footsteps with Launch Royale

Apex Legends Season 23 is bringing back the OG King’s Canyon and original weapons, giving players who didn’t have a chance to try Apex all those years ago a chance to experience it for themselves.

Over the years, Apex has gone through a lot of changes, mostly for the better. The game’s day one state was incredibly unbalanced, with certain Legends being significantly stronger than others. Some guns like the OG Wingman were hilariously overpowered, and the map was fairly basic, with certain POIs being vastly preferred over others. It’s a much better game now than it was in a lot of ways.

However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t value in preserving the original game. With Apex Legends being an overnight hit that only gained more and more traction to its peak player counts in 2022/2023, there are a ton of people who never even got to try it.

Respawn Entertainment

Now, with a limited-time mode that’s bringing back the day 1 version of the game as it was, you’ll be able to experience the game as it was, blemishes and all. This is something that was a huge hit with Fortnite players with OG, so it’s no surprise to see Apex giving it a shot as well in Season 23.

The return of OG Apex Legends shows how far we’ve come. Here’s the full description for everything that’s coming back/being reverted:

• General Changes
  • Original Kings Canyon Map and POIs
  • Original Loot Distribution and loot items
  • Players drop with no equipment or healing items
  • Armor Core/Evo has been removed, each piece of armor is pickup only and does not evolve. Original shield swapping mechanics are now in play.
  • Original Ring timings and damage
• Legend Changes
  • No Class-based Legend Perks, fortified perks removed
  • Each Legend has had the majority of their stats and abilities reverted to the first season’s balance. 
  • Re-introduced being able to “bunny hop” while healing
  • Re-introduced “punch boosting” where punching the ground behind you gives a slight speed boost
  • Players can infinitely jump on ziplines, max 3 interactions before cooldown is removed
  • Shields are not automatically regenerated on finishers, now exclusive to Gold Armor
• Equipment Changes
  • Equipment items and attachments have their original tunings from the first season
  • Gold Items have their passives changed to their original state:
    • Gold Knockdown – Self Revive
    • Gold Backpack – Fast Heal
    • Gold Armor – Shield Regeneration on Execution (this is not a trait granted by default anymore)
  • Original capacities on all Magazines
  • No Laser Sights, Sniper Magazines, Energy Magazines (they didn’t exist yet!)
  • Original HopUps: Select Fire, Energy Choke, Turbocharger, Skullpiercer
  • Helmet protections have been reverted to balance in first season
  • Ammo stacks in inventory has been changed to match original carrying capacities
• Weapon Changes
  • Original Attachments equipped on every gun
  • Original tunings on all weapons, Launch Royale variants have been created to authentically recreate the feeling of the original weapon handlings
  • All hipfire is reverted to its much tighter spread
  • All original Gold kitted weapons are restored
  • Global headshot damage is now 2.0x (with some exceptions per weapon)
  • Original Crate weapons come down in care packages: Mastiff, Kraber, LSTAR

There are a few eye catching differences like the “majority” of Legends being reverted to their balance in the release version rather than all of them, but most of these adjustments are faithful to the original 2019 release.

This mode will only be around for a limited time, but it’ll be testing the waters for whether the old version of Apex Legends still holds up all these years later. And, with Apex’s player count on a continual decline, maybe this is what it’ll take to win players back. Or perhaps we’ll see why some Legends have been nerfed into the ground over the past 5 years.