Apex Legends is revisiting the past, but it should be prouder of its present

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Nostalgia, when you think about it, is bollocks. There has never been a better time than right this second – averaged out, and despite repeated attempts to the contrary, humanity has never been healthier, freer, or more enlightened by knowledge. It’s true of games too. For every by-committee platter of passionless map markers, there are thousands of more personal, more creative, more interesting works, all adding to the decades' worth of great stuff we can still play today.

What isn’t bollocks is the emotional pull that nostalgia, for all its lack of cold, hard reason, still manages to wield inside our warm, squishy brains. Hence, the centrepiece of Apex Legends’ Season 23 update is a mode that recreates the battle royale FPS as it was back in 2019, defaulting back to the original map and weapon arsenal while cutting the 26-strong legend roster to the earliest ten. It’s a Fortnite-style rolling back of the clock, and a passably enjoyable one, but also a reminder that the good old days weren’t always that good.

For one thing, and despite the mode’s Launch Royale naming, even Respawn haven’t had the heart to revive Apex exactly as it was on release day. Some post-launch balance and QoL changes remain; there are, for example, none of the infamously blinding muzzle flash effects that spoiled many an early teamfight. The first two seasonal character additions, Octane and Wattson, have snuck into the playable cast as well. It’s an upgraded and idealised version of the past, the gaming equivalent of a honeymoon photo with all the background strangers Photoshopped out. That’s not a problem in itself – novelty shooter modes don’t need to provide accurate historical accounts – but what good is nostalgia if you’re still compelled to airbrush the memories?

It's not like I'm immune to its charms. As a lapsed Wraith player, tired of the change to her phase shift ability that added a wind-up time of approximately six months, popping the original instant-activation version is an almost illicit thrill. And there is something pure about the OG King’s Canyon map, from before a series of legend-themed regional makeovers turned it into a murdery Alton Towers. Still, there’s plenty here that frankly deserved a later banishing. Lifeline’s revive shield? Wildly overtuned. Mirage’s original ultimate? Largely useless. The return of long-patched "movement tech", like bunnyhopping, will please the kind of people who hotdrop Skulltown then act surprised about dying there, but ultimately these involve literally exploiting unintended physics quirks to circumvent deliberate balancing limitations. In other words, fuck ‘em. Leave them in the past, where they belong.

If anything, a few rounds of Launch Royale serves to highlight how much good work has gone into Apex over the years. Dynamic, tactically rich legends like Loba, Valkyrie, and Horizon; punchy, satisfying armaments like the Charge Rifle and Bocek bow; gorgeous, intricate maps like Olympus and Storm Point. And that’s just the big stuff. Season 20 did an especially fine job of tweaking minutiae like legend skills and armour mechanics to encourage braver, bolder styles of battling royally, and that was less than a year ago.

Maybe not every change has been for the better. A rollback mode could very easily attract those who’ve felt frustration with Apex’s occasional balance missteps, expensive cosmetic sales, the recent battle pass debacle, and maybe even last week’s abandoning of Steam Deck support. I’ve certainly felt the whiplash of writing about its mistakes as often as its successes, and 2019 was, at the very least, a simpler time. Weighed against five years’ worth of expansion and refinement, though? All those fun new additions, with fights decided by who’s better rather than who was lucky enough to land on a level four shield? Soon enough, the basicness of Launch Royale makes it feel less like an escape from the current state of play and more like an argument in its favour.

In that sense, it isn’t actually very effective as nostalgia bait. Yet Respawn were so eager for you to huff the fumes of a bygone golden age that for several days, Launch Royale was the only way of playing full Apex matches in unranked mode, fully replacing the usual BR queue. It's an optional mode as of this morning, but is still being marketed as Season 23's focal point - meaning that to try out the update's genuinely new material, including a complete rework of Lifeline’s ability kit, you’ll have to actively avoid the headline attraction.

I don’t need to spell out why this is madness. I also don’t need to look at the obscene player counts Fortnite pulled when it had its own Chapter 1 rerun, nor the hype around Call of Duty: Warzone resurrecting its original Verdansk map next year, and wonder aloud why Apex Legends might be trying something similar.

I just don’t think it needs to? The most entertaining qualities of Launch Royale are timeless ones that still fuel Apex today: slick movement, tight gunfights, best-in-class readability and player communication. Add in heaps more thoughtfully designed legends, guns, and maps, and you’ve got a battle royale that’s as compelling as anything out there. Better to see this develop further than for it to be chopped up and stripped back, especially in service to a force as nebulous as nostalgia.