Most matches in Apex Legends are won or lost within the first five minutes. Unless you’re fortunate enough to make it to the final three teams, your experience will depend almost entirely on where you drop and what loot you can secure before getting into a firefight. Today’s tutorial is going to walk you through viewing the map and selecting a drop location in Apex Legends.
When you first start playing Apex Legends, selecting a drop location can be a little intimidating. At first glance, drop point selection comes down to seeing where everyone else is going and either avoiding that area or diving straight into the action with them. When you get to know the map a little better, you quickly realize that different sections of the map have different tiers of loot.
Once you know that, selecting a drop location becomes a little easier.
How to view the map in Apex Legends
At the time of writing, there is a single map in Apex Legends, King’s Canyon. It’s a large map with many different areas with different styles, landscapes, themes and loot tiers. While limited in scope, there is enough here to keep players entertained for the foreseeable future but everyone hopes more maps are incoming.
To access the map in-game, press M on PC or the back button on Xbox.
You cannot access the map until you are in the game but there are tons of map images online. If you are Jumpmaster, you need to know the map well and roughly what loot tiers are in what position.
Loot tiers and the map in Apex Legends
You already know about loot tiers right? Gray items are low tier, blue are higher, purple higher still and gold are legendary. Blue and purples are fairly common on the map but legendary items are very rare. As well as having different styles across the map, Respawn decided to allocate different loot tiers across the map too.
As you land in a location, you will see the minimap at the top left of the screen with the location name. You should also see a small label with the loot tier underneath that location. You can use this as a rough guide as to what to expect when you land.
It will take practice to learn where everything is but learning it should be a priority. For example, high tier loot is most often found at:
- Airbase
- Artillery
- Bunker
- Hydro Dam
- Repulsor
- Relay
- Swamps
- The Pit
- Thunderdome
- Water Treatment
- Wetlands
As you can see from the map image, most named areas have a high chance of featuring high tier loot. Those loot spots between the named areas have a lower change of high tier loot but will still feature some.
If you want to learn the map so you know where to land, this map is constantly updated by players to reflect the levels of loot found in individual named areas.
The map is randomized so exact levels and exact named loot is impossible to name with any accuracy. If you checked out that map above, you will see different players voting for different loot tiers in each area depending on their experience. It’s a real mix but with a clear majority. Using the map or memorizing these areas will usually net you blue loot if not purple with the occasional gold.
Landing in named areas in Apex Legends
As you likely have experienced, there is a lot of competition for purple areas when you first jump in Apex Legends. As a Jumpmaster, you have a choice to make. Do you drop into a high traffic area with a good chance of landing high tier loot but also a higher chance of getting ganked the minute you land? Or do you find a quieter spot, loot what you can and make your way into the higher tier areas after everyone has gone?
There is no right answer here and much will depend on your team and your play style. Sometimes it’s nice to land in a high tier area, grab a gun and some ammo and begin duking it out right away. You stand a higher chance of being taken out but an equally higher chance of looting purple.
Other times it’s more relaxed to land somewhere quiet, get gray gear and steadily upgrade as you make your way across the map. The danger here is that you may be outgunned when you come across other players and those high tier areas may have been stripped bare by those who landed there first.
How do you prefer to play Apex Legends? Hit the ground running and gunning or make your way to the center in a more measured way? Tell us about it below!
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