Apex Legends has only been been out for less than a month, but players interested in the game could've discovered a rough model of its world map 11 months ago. The Apex Legends subreddit uncovered a post made by a user nearly a year ago in the Titanfall subreddit about a rumored battle royale game, complete with the "alleged minimap" of that title.
Apex Legends has been a phenomenon in its first month of release. The game started out growing faster than Fortnite, and its playerbase has steadily risen as the positive buzz surrounding it continues. Obviously, explosive growth and sustained popularity are vastly different concepts, so it's too early to suggest Apex Legends can shoot for the gaudy numbers its competitors have put up over longer periods of time. At this point in time, though, anything related to Apex Legends is sure to catch the attention of gamers worldwide.
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That's why the minimap post, originally made by a user named hiticonic and then dug up by Fubbles22, has been so popular on the Apex Legends subreddit. The post shows that the core of what would become the map players love has existed for nearly a year, and although there have been changes, the overall design is extremely similar. That means eagle-eyed players who bought in to the rumor that a Titanfall battle royale game was being produced could have had a sizeable head start on everyone when it finally launched, although, clearly, nobody really did.
The thread now sits at over 57k upvotes and houses over 1.5k comments, including a response from one of the development team members at Respawn Entertainment. The original poster, hiticonic, has been enjoying the added attention, joking that they would take their upvotes now before receiving a slew of reddit gold for their previously unappreciated reporting.
Respawn Community Manager responded to the thread by stating that it was "a relief" to see people blow it off when it was originally posted, before thinking that hiticonic would be able to claim he was right in 2019. As it turns out, hiticonic doesn't seem like the "I told you so" type, but someone else did it for them.
Usually in games, leaks can be devastating to a developer, especially something as important as the layout of an entire map. This is one of the rare occasions where a leak happened and, in a world where people keep believing Banjo will be in Smash Bros., the idea of a Titanfall battle royale game was just too much for some people. Now we get to look back and laugh on it, and Respawn can enjoy the resounding success that Apex Legends has brought the studio for the better part of a month.