Apex Legends devs warn Skull Town return is ‘only temporary’

Skull Town is back in Apex Legends, and many players are rejoicing. However, Respawn has warned players that both its battle royale and Arenas return is only temporary, and they have to soak it in during the limited-time Genesis Collection event.

It’s like home for many Apex Legends players. Skull Town was the place to drop on the original Kings Canyon.

However, after removing the POI in Season 5 and replacing it with Offshore Rig ⁠— an attempt to keep the game “fresh” ⁠— players have been long pestering Respawn to bring it back.

They got their wishes fulfilled in the Genesis Collection event, with Skull Town returning not just as a POI on the original Kings Canyon map which is now in rotation, but also as an Arenas map.

There is a catch though. The hot drop of old won’t be around forever, not even as an Arenas map. Skull Town is only a temporary addition to the game, with lead level designer Dave ‘StryderPilot’ Osei citing “tech limitations” as a reason stopping it from permanently returning.

“Skull Town in Arenas will only be available for the duration of the Collection Event. Once the event is done, it’s gone. It can always come back later,” he explained.

“Currently, all BR [battle royale] Arena locations are using the full BR map to run. You might notice that they take the longest to load when matchmaking. This saved a ton a dev time during production of Arenas.”

If it’s popular enough, there’s potential for Skull Town to be a permanent addition into Arenas. However, it’d force Respawn to move some of their developers off future content, like the fast-approaching Season 10, to rejig Skull Town as a fully-fledged Arenas map.

“To keep Skull Town, we’d have to find a way to separate it from OG Kings Canyon, which is also a limited time map. This requires other departments to get involved (Art, QA etc.) and they’re pretty busy on future content. So we made the call to keep it limited.”

Genesis Collection will kick off on June 29, with the original Kings Canyon and World’s Edge returning in the normal play rotation. Revenant’s heirloom has also dropped, as well as 24 themed cosmetics.