No One Noticed Apex Legends' Map Leaked A Year Ago

Apex Legends, the battle royale game from Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment, made a huge splash when it launched in February 2019. An accessible FPS with a cool ping system, Apex Legends has seen critical and commercial success, with our own review awarding it a 9 out of 10. However, the game's map leaked nearly a year ago and no one noticed or seemed to care.

A Reddit user named hiticonic seemingly leaked Apex Legend's map on the Titanfall subreddit 11 months ago. Unfortunately, the post was met with both disbelief and disappointment. "They better not add battle royale in the next game," one Reddit user commented. "I really hope this doesn't happen," wrote another. After a handful of comments, the thread went radio silent. To everyone's chagrin--or excitement, depending on which side of the coin you fall on--Apex Legends was Respawn's "new Titanfall game."

The map, above, is very much the map currently playable in Apex Legends. After being rediscovered in the Apex Legends subreddit, users are taking trips down memory lane, reflecting on (and laughing about) the accuracy of the leak, with some calling into question the legitimacy of the user who initially posted it. "/u/hiticonic is a mod here. HMMMMMMMM I smell intentional leaks from the dev team. I'm onto you," wrote one user. "If the leak was intentional, it certainly didn't achieve the desired effect :D," commented another.

Leaks are strange. It's hard to verify the veracity of them, which is why they tend to remain untouched until confirmed by someone familiar with the project. Is it likely that hiticonic has a relationship with EA (perhaps via the company's Game Changers program) and Respawn Entertainment? It's possible, but a leak's a leak nonetheless. Always take them with a grain of salt.

In our Apex Legends review, we said the game is "a mix of smart shooter ideas that makes for a competitive, team-based game that gets at all the best parts of battle royale while addressing a lot of the weaknesses," calling it "more than just a worthy addition to the [battle royale] genre."

Apex Legends is available now--for free--for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.