It’s finally time – Apex’s first esports tournament is here!

Fans of Respawn Entertainments popular Battle Royale title can rejoice – it’s almost time for the very first licensed pro Apex Legends competition! Better known as perhaps the only recent game EA didn’t bog down with bad press, scandals or lootbox issues.

In fact, Apex Legends was a huge success and is now one of the most popular Battle Royale games out there. Fans have been eagerly awaiting the beginning of a proper competitive season, and now the day has come! Well, almost.

On the 31^st of May, the FACEIT Pro Series: Apex Legends is launching. It will feature 16 teams playing in eight events for a $50.000 total prize pool. That’s not bad, given that this is the first official tournament for this game.

© FACEIT

Details are still a little unclear – it’s unknown whether the game will have the teams in a custom lobby or if they will use a points system that rates each team’s performance in public matches, for example based on wins and number of eliminations achieved.

Whichever it is, we’ve been promised ‘sixteen of the world’s best Apex Legends teams’ by FACEIT Apex’s Twitter account, and so far the confirmed teams suggest that is indeed the case. Among others, 100 Thieves, G2 Esports, Cloud9, Dignitas, GenG, Misfits, NRG and Fnatic will be fielding teams, and further, players from SKT T1 and Team Liquid have been invited but not yet confirmed. Additionally,  “Two more teams will secure their place through the FACEIT Pro Series: Apex Legends qualifier, featuring 20 teams selected from the Apex Pro Discord”, the announcement read.

This qualifier will see 20 teams competing for just two of the 16 spots in the main event, meaning it’ll be a tight competition with little to no room for mistakes – in addition to the teams that participate by invitation, this is the only way to earn a spot in the finals at all!

All of the players are based in North America, meaning that for now the competition is limited to that region. Whether in the future world-wide tournaments will happen, or whether there will be separate regions similar to the way Overwatch handles its tournaments is unknown – either could work, of course, but the latter is more likely.

© Respawn Entertainment

There are currently two other tournament series running but neither are exclusive to pro gamers like this one is – both the Twitch Rivals and BOOM TV’s Code Red use public matches for their scores and matchups, and feature players from a variety of backgrounds. Apex doesn’t have a system for custom matches or even a spectator mode, making it likely that it will, in fact use the same system, unless Respawn Entertainment specifically creates the necessary elements to handle it differently.

The rules of the tournament haven’t been revealed yet, but fans can expect them pretty soon – there are, after all, only a few days left until it all kicks off!

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