'Apex Legends' Season 2 Ranked Leagues Tiers, Points, and Rewards Explained
The competition is heating up.
The online competition in Apex Legends Season 2 will be more heated than it has ever been. The game’s developer, Respawn Entertainment, will roll out a ranked game mode Tuesday that will allow players to see how their skills compared to the rest of the Apex community.
The new play option is titled “Ranked Leagues” and on the surface, it’ll be similar to the ranking system that governs online play in other competitive, team-based video games, like Overwatch and League of Legends. Players will queue up for the game-mode and be placed in a match with 59 others of similar skill rating. This is in contrast to standard matchmaking, which can group together players of vastly different experiences levels.
The final goal is to give serious, competitive players a chance to test their abilities against gamers of the same caliber. It also works in favor of less-experienced players, keeping them from being stomped by, say, a Twitch streamer that happens to be in their game.
Wattson will be joining the 'Apex Legends' cast along with a new Ranked Leagues mode.
Respawn has attempted a skill-based matchmaking system in the past, by implementing Elite Queue on June 4. Elite Queue is only accessible to players who made it to the Top 5 of any recent match. Ranked Leagues is accessible to every player, after they’ve reached a certain level, and will record every match results.
Three of Respawn’s community managers took to the Apex Legends subreddit on Monday to breakdown exactly how the new game mode will work. Here are all of the ins and outs of Ranked Leagues coming to Apex Legends Season 2 on Tuesday.
Apex Legends Season 2: Series and Rewards
Ranked Leagues will be periodic and be hosted in “Series,” similar to the Seasons approach Respawn is taking to its patches.
July 2 will mark the beginning of Series 1 that will last until September. That’s when everyone’s current rank will be finalized and rewards will be allocated based on ranked performance throughout the series.
The rewards are still up in the air, but Respawn said it will give players rank badges based on how they perform. The developers also stated that they’re ironing out other rewards that will “let you show off your accomplishments.”
Unique gun cosmetics, badges to accompany screen names, and new dive trails are all on the table.
Apex Legends Season 2: The Requirements
Any player that wants to test their skills on Ranked Leagues needs to first reach level 10.
This ensures that newer players have at least a basic understanding of the game’s mechanics, map, and characters before they jump into ranked. Plus, it makes it more difficult for cheaters and hackers to make a burner account in order to unfairly soar through the ranks.
Apex Legends Season 2: Ranking System
There will be six rank tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Apex Predator.
Each tier, besides Apex Predator, will be made up of four divisions; Bronze IV, Bronze III, Bronze II, and Bronze I, for example, with Bronze I being the top division in the tier. Advancing past Bronze I would then take players into Silver IV and so on.
Respawn didn’t specify exactly how the Apex Predator tier would be ranked but, it’ll likely consist of a countdown ranking starting from #1 to however many players can be in the tier at once. The finalized number will likely be announced in the coming days.
Apex Legends Season 2: Ranked Points
To move through the ranks, players will need to amass ranked points (RP) by placing in at least Top 10 in matches and netting kills. Here are the score requirements for each of the tiers:
- Bronze: 0RP, everyone starts here.
- Silver: 120RP
- Gold: 290RP
- Platinum: 480RP
- Diamond: 720RP
- Apex Predator: 1,000RP
A graphic explaining how ranked leagues will work.
Games become higher-stakes the farther up the ladder players climb. Each ranked match will cost RP to play based on tiers. Here’s the breakdown:
- Bronze: Free
- Silver: 1RP
- Gold: 2RP
- Platinum: 3RP
- Diamond: 4RP
- Apex Predator: 5RP
In higher tiers, players will be required to earn an increased amount of RP just to break even. Any players can earn a maximum of 17RP per game by getting kills and winning the game. Here’s how to earn RP:
- Kills are worth 1RP up to a mx of 5RP per match.
- Placing Top 10: 2RP
- Placing Top 5: 4RP
- Placing Top 3: 7RP
- Winning: 12RP
That means getting 5 or more kills and winning the match is the way to get the most RP.
Apex Legends Season 2: Demotion and Promotion
When a player earns their first 120RP they’ll be moved into Silver IV, but even if they lose their next five games they won’t be moved back down to Bronze. Respawn’s Reddit post stated that there won’t be cross-tier demotion but there will be division demotion.
That means if someone is in Gold I and goes on a losing streak, they could be pushed back down to Gold IV but they can’t be placed into Silver I. This is a feature unique to Apex and the devs said they may revisit this in the future based on how Series 1 goes.
Apex Legends Season 2: Penalties and Loss Forgiveness
Like most online competitive games, there will penalties for players who chose to disconnect before a match is over.
Players who abandon their teammates will be banned from using Apex Legends’ matchmaking services across every game mode. Leaving one game will result in a 5-minute ban but that can be escalated to up to a week based on how many games a player disconnects from.
Anyone affected by another player ditching them in-game will be granted loss foreignness. That means game scores will be adjusted to zero if a player stands to lose RP because one of their teammates left the game.
Respawn said that there will be lenient loss forgiveness at first, but it could become stricter if players are found abusing the mechanic.
It’s a new dawn for competitive Apex Legends, Ranked Leagues is available to play as of July 2 along with the rest of Season 2.
