Apex Legends Season 5 is introducing a mini-campaign mode

Adding some PvE to the battle royale

Apex Legends is finishing up its Season 4 this week, with Season 5 launching on May 12, and we have some details now on what sounds like it could be the biggest seasonal addition the game has seen since it launched last year. There’s the usual stuff, including a new legend to play as (see Loba’s introductory trailer below), and some map changes (bye bye, Skull Town), but by far the most unexpected change is the new “” season quest.

The gist of it is that it will be a way for the battle royale to deliver more story elements in-game rather than only through trailers and blog posts. It’s also sounding like it wants people to play regularly or pay if they want to keep up, as a new chapter unlocks every week for the first nine weeks of the season, but gaining access to those chapters requires players to play on five different days to pick up a special item in the competitive mode.

Doing so unlocks a “Hunt,” which lets solo players or squads zone into King’s Canyon at night for a PvE event similar to last Halloween’s Shadowfall event, where players need to brave an arena filled with Prowlers to secure a piece of the macguffin and extract on a dropship without dying. Successfully finishing a Hunt will provide in-game rewards like weapon skins, but also the next piece of the evolving story.

It’s an exciting time for Apex Legends players. Check out the story trailer and gameplay trailers below to see what happened to Skull Town and what’s showing up in its place. Good riddance.