World’s Edge

World’s Edge started development around the same time as King’s Canyon, which was about a year before Apex Legend launched. It was unknown if Apex would ever get or need a second map during this time, and there were many unknowable problems at the start of its development. During this time, Titanfall wall-running and double jumping were still gameplay mechanics in the game, and Apex was a battle royale mode for Titanfall. Apex Legends being its own unique free-to-play game, would not be decided until six months after I started working on the map.

Because of this long development cycle, World’s Edge had the benefit of time, which allowed me to design the entire map and focus on micro design. The main goal was to design the map to support various play styles while still maintaining an overall map flow and consistency and make a map different from King’s Canyon while not feeling alien to Apex Legends.

The map’s design pillars were to make dense cities for tight-quarters urban combat. Open spaces different from King’s Canyon “room” POIs to help telegraph enemy players and allow players to make more informed decisions in terms of their map movement. Segregation of space with chasms and gaps promotes longer distance fights to encourage Legend abilities opportunity. And dynamic moving-geo: the train, moving cover, gondolas transportation (an idea cut until the 3rd update to the map).

I could write a GDC paper on the map’s development, performance challenges, and the sheer amount of work it took to make a map of this size, but instead, I will let the gameplay speak for itself.

Acknowledgments

Design Lead: Jason McCord
Art Director: Robert Taube
Lead Artist: Jose Zavala
Train Scripter: Davis Standley, Mike Anderson
Loot Drones: Chad Armstrong