Apex Legends map Broken Moon is coming in Season 15: Eclipse on November 1. It’s been almost exactly a year since Respawn added a new map to the FPS’s growing rotation, and this addition will bring the total up to five. Broken Moon features 16 POIs, a new method of transportation, and a distinct vision between unique architecture and industrial sites.
Respawn’s lead level designer, Jeff Shaw, and world director, Ed Agostini, provided a number of details about the new map during a press event last week.
Cleo is a moon that was struck by a comet, and the resulting debris nearly destroyed the planet it orbits. A Stasis Net and atmosphere were created there to save Boreas – the home planet of Catalyst and Seer – and now, Cleo is part of the Apex Games as Broken Moon.
The map is slightly larger than World’s Edge and is similar to both World’s Edge and Kings Canyon in terms of terrain. This means that it features fewer hillsides and slopes like the ones found on Storm Point.
Shaw mentioned that Storm Point’s scale was “a little large,” and that it caused “lulls” in the mid-game, which influenced the decision to make Broken Moon smaller.
While the size and terrain are certainly worth mentioning, Broken Moon’s most notable feature is its exclusive Zip Rail transportation option. These rails are like high-speed zip lines that can make turns and change elevation – think roller coaster tracks that you can stick to directly.
Zip Rails are often the best way to move between POIs, traverse the map, and make rotations. They’re useful for both organizing pushes and going on the defensive when necessary.
I asked about what unique difficulties the team faced while creating Broken Moon when compared to other maps, and Agostini responded “one of the big things was [that] we wanted to explore gravity and what gravity could mean for a moon map. That was probably the biggest thing we tried.”
“I would say the biggest challenge was definitely getting the Zip Rails right,” Shaw added. “That was a huge undertaking by the team. Just getting every element in there so that they didn’t feel annoying from third parties or that they were loud enough [and] you could tell people were coming on them, and you didn’t get ambushed.”
Shaw also went on to mention that Zip Rails had to feel and look good as well, which only added to the difficulty of their implementation.
Broken Moon will be the first map in the ranked split for Apex Legends Season 15, and it’ll also appear in casual modes alongside Olympus and World’s Edge.