Apex Legends unveils major format changes for ALGS Year 5

Lea Maas
ALGS Year 5 key graphic
Image credit: ALGS

The Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) has revealed major format changes in its roadmap for its Year 5 esports ecosystem.

The changes will affect the series’ tournament structure, points system, map pool and prize money distribution.

The 2025 competitive calendar will consist of the ALGS Pro League as well as three offline tournaments: the ALGS Open, the Midseason Playoffs and the 2025 Championship.

The ALGS Open, the calendar’s first LAN event, will feature an updated format, a double-elimination bracket and a $1m (~£810,000) prize pool. Moreover, the competition will invite an unprecedented 160 competitors which includes all 120 ALGS Pro League teams and an additional 40 teams from the Preseason Qualifier.

As usual, the Pro League is divided into two splits, with 30 teams competing in each region. However, the North and South American regions have been consolidated to form the Americas. As a result, the ALGS Pro League now consists of the Americas, EMEA, APAC North and APAC South regions.

Throughout the 2025 season, the goal is still to earn points to climb the leaderboard and qualify for global offline events.

However, Playoff Points have now been rebranded into Championship Points with these points now belonging to the player rather than the team. Points may be collected through the Pro League, ALGS Open and Midseason Playoffs.

In addition, Pro League Points in the Regional Finals have been buffed to account for the increased difficulty in these matches. The exact increase has yet to be revealed.

The ALGS also made adjustments to the distribution of its $5m (~£4m) total prize pool. While only the top 20 teams were eligible for LAN event payouts in previous years, prize distribution will include the top 30 rosters at the Midseason Playoffs and Championship. The ALGS Open will award the top 40 teams with prize money.

Updated rules and new map pool

Finally, the upcoming ALGS season will see several new features that will affect the way matches are played. To allow more amateur teams to compete under Pro League conditions, POI Drafting will be introduced to the Pro League Qualifier and Last Chance Qualifier.

The map pool will also be updated to include Broken Moon in addition to World’s Edge, Storm Point and E-District. However, Broken Moon and E-District will only debut after the Preseason Qualifiern, allowing teams to prepare for the new additions.

The updated rules will also introduce Legend Bans to the Pro League, Pro League Qualifier, Last Chance Qualifier and all LAN events. Starting with every legend available, the legend picked by the most teams will be removed from the legend pool after each match for the remainder of the series. If an entire class of legends is removed from the legend pool, the longest-banned legend will become available again.

With the 2024 Championship concluding on February 2nd, the ALGS is already looking to kick off the 2025 competitive season. Eligible players may now register for the Preseason Qualifier, which commences on February 22nd and offers qualification to the season’s first LAN event.

Further details regarding tournament dates and locations will be announced in the future.

Lea is a business student with too many interests and too little time. Covering esports stories for more than 2 years, she is deeply invested in DEI matters, promoting mental health awareness and everything VALORANT.