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Publisher Respawn Entertainment wanted to move away from regional Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) events and have one consolidated LAN event to crown the Apex Legends world champions for the 2021-2022 competitive season. But that will unfortunately not become a reality anytime soon as COVID-19 cases continue to concern both the tournament staff and participants.
The publisher has halted the ALGS Split 1 playoffs from being held in a LAN setting. Instead, the event will go back to the original online regional competition format. Things may change later in the competitive season but as of now, competitive Apex will not be a global affair.
Competitors from over 40 countries had registered for the Apex Legends Global Series which started off with regional qualifiers and would lead up to a global LAN event with a global champion being crowned for Split 1. Instead, it will move to an online regional competition format.
Respawn apologized to its competitors and fans in the official announcement. It stated that its “priority is protecting our competitors, employees, tournament partner staff, and communities. As we continue to monitor the Covid-19 Omicron variant, review the continuously changing country-by-country travel restrictions, and digest the direction given to us by health officials ”
Respawn is waiting on reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) on the new COVID-19 strain in order to decide how it will move future Splits of the 2021-2022 competitive season forward.
What will change in the Apex Legends Global Series
The Split 1 Playoffs will now feature five separate online tournaments, with the top 20 teams from the Split 1 Regular Season in each region competing in a Match Point series. The $1 Million USD Split 1 Playoffs prize pool is now divided across the five regional events for North America, Europe, South America, Asia Pacific North, and Asia Pacific South.
Respawn will continue to keep its fans updated as much as possible and will provide more ALGS competitive event information when appropriate. The ALGS Split 2 playoffs will be in a LAN environment as originally planned provided the COVID-19 situation does not worsen globally. Until May, the ALGS will remain an online-only competition.
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