For fans of competitive Apex Legends, last week’s announcement about Year 2 of the Apex Legends Global Series certainly sparked some conversation. With the competition expanding to include new territories and Xbox and PlayStation console players, a new two-tiered format with LAN events thrown in, and a huge $5 million prize pool, there are big changes on the way.
Following the announcement, The Loadout spoke to the ALGS’ commissioner, John Nelson, to learn more about the massive shakeup to Apex esports. During our conversation, we posed Nelson ten quick questions about Year 2 of the ALGS, focused on aspects that were either unclear or left out of the initial announcement post.
We’ve already learned that the ALGS wants its three LANs in Year 2 to be hosted across three different continents. So are there any other surprises Nelson has up his sleeve that fans may not yet be aware of?
Here are ten quickfire questions with the commissioner about Year 2 of the Apex Legends Global Series.
The Loadout: Match Point is back once again, but is the Match Point formula with seedings etc. going to be the same as we saw during Champs, or will it evolve a bit for Year 2?
John Nelson: [There will be] no changes to the Match Point format from what it was at the [Year 1] Championship. We’re always taking in feedback from the community and discussing it as a team. We’re open to potentially making tweaks like we did after the Preseason Invitational [in 2019]. But as of now, there’s no change.
Will co-streaming, including both the competitors and maybe external streamers and content creators as well, be permitted for ALGS Year 2?
Yes, we will continue to have an open, community-first outlook on streaming, giving viewers choice in how they consume the Apex Legends Global Series. They can watch the EA streams, they can watch partner streams, local language broadcasts, watch parties, or any of the player streams that accompany our tournaments.
Are there any changes to rules around roster moves and roster locks happening for Year 2?
There are changes to the process that the teams will go through in building their rosters and making changes over the course of the season. I can’t go into the specifics of those, as they will come out with the official rules soon, but they are just the natural changes that come with a change in format. I think that with going from mainly open tournaments to a format that is league-based, there come expected changes to the roster rules.
Does Pro League relegation and promotion carry over between Years? I.e., will there be a promotion and relegation tournament between Year 2 Split 2 and Year 3 Split 1?
That’s not one that I can go into today, but it will be made more clear with the rules.
A quick format thing we wanted to clarify: The only way to qualify for Year 2 Champs is either finishing high in the Split 2 Playoffs or the Last Chance Qualifier. Is that correct?
No. So, qualification for the Championship, like you’ve described, has the two tracks: there’s the one through the Playoffs and there’s the one through the Last Chance Qualifiers. But the one through the Playoffs actually takes a combination of your performance from Split 1 and Split 2. So teams could get into the Championship, potentially, from their Split 1 performance, or automatically from their Split 2 performance, or from a combination of quality performances at both of the Playoff tournaments. And then the Last Chance Qualifier, you had right with that one, that’s just its own path.
How many spots does each region get at Playoff events and the Championship?
The specifics of how many spots each region gets at the Split 1 Playoffs is a detail that will come out soon with the official rules.
But what I can share, and it’s something that I’m excited about, is that the allocation of spots for each region for Split 1 and Split 2 will very likely not be the same. That’s because it’ll be the performance of those regional representatives at Split 1 that determine then how many spots from their region are allocated for the Split 2 Playoffs.
For your three LAN events, do you have three host cities/ countries in mind already?
We have three host countries in mind. I can’t share the specific countries today, but I can share that Apex Legends is a globally popular game, and what we’ve built with the ALGS is a globally popular esport, so our aim is to take these live events around the world.
Are these three countries on three different continents?
Yes, our aim is to take the ALGS live events to three different continents.
For each live event, what is the backup plan process? Do you have X amount of backup locations for each one?
That’s probably not a detail that I can or should share today.
Are there any more twists or significant changes to the ALGS ruleset that are yet to be announced but that we’ll find out when the rulebook drops?
Good question… Nothing that’s coming to the top of my head, but the answer is probably ‘yes’. I mean, we’re making a lot of interesting changes for year two [and they] should be really exciting for the community.
As you can tell, not all the details have been released with our announcement [last week] and there’s a lot more exciting stuff to come, so stay tuned. Competition doesn’t start until September, then the Pro League in October, and we’re gonna have a lot of really exciting stuff to announce before then.
Stay tuned to The Loadout this week for more ALGS insight from John Nelson.