The ''Apex Legends'' Global Series (ALGS) is a global competitive
esports
Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...
tournament series for the video game ''
Apex Legends
''Apex Legends'' is a 2019 Battle royale game, battle royale-hero shooter video game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, set in the same science fiction universe as Respawn's ''Titanfall'' series. It is offered ...
'' run by
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...
and
Respawn Entertainment
Respawn Entertainment, LLC is an American video game development studio founded in 2010 by Jason West and Vince Zampella and owned by Electronic Arts since 2017. West and Zampella previously co-founded Infinity Ward and created the ''Call of D ...
. The series uses a
promotion and relegation
Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...
system throughout each season, culminating in the ALGS Championship. The ALGS was announced in 2019, with its
inaugural season taking place in 2020–21.
Format
As of the 2021–22 season, the ALGS season format consists three phases: Split One, Split Two, and the ALGS Championship. Each split consists of a regular season, called the Pro League, and playoffs.
Each split consists of a regional Pro League regular season in each of its five regions: North America, EMEA, APAC South, APAC North, and South America. A total of 40 teams in each region compete in their region's Pro League, with teams coming from online qualifiers and direct invites based on previous performance.
A total of 40 teams from the Pro Leagues then advance to the split playoffs. After the conclusion of the Split Two playoffs, the top performing teams from playoffs, along with teams that advance through "Last Chance Qualifier tournaments", advance to the ALGS Championship match.
History
Inaugural season
In December 2019,
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...
(EA) and
Respawn Entertainment
Respawn Entertainment, LLC is an American video game development studio founded in 2010 by Jason West and Vince Zampella and owned by Electronic Arts since 2017. West and Zampella previously co-founded Infinity Ward and created the ''Call of D ...
announced the first ''Apex Legends'' Global Series. The series was split up into total of 22 events over four phases, and each phase culminated in Major Events, the series' top-level events; the last Major of season, called the ''Apex Legends'' Global Series Championship, would determine the winner of the season. The first event of the season began in January 2020. The first online qualifiers was marred by game
crashes disconnecting players from the server, as well as
bugs within the game itself. On March 6, the first major was indefinitely postponed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. On March 31, the season shifted to a completely online format and introduced a tournament structure change that included the introduction of new tournaments. The ALGS Championship was divided into five separate championship matches by region — North America (NA), South America (SA), Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), Asia-Pacific North (APAC North), and Asia-Pacific South (APAC South).
The prize pool for the ALGS Championship was , with $1million initially contributed by EA, while rest came from sales of limited edition in-game skins. The ALGS Championship began on June 1,
and the five regional champions of the season were Kungarna NA (North America), Paradox Esports (South America),
Scarz Europe (EMEA), Fennel Korea (APAC North), and Wolfpack Arctic (APAC South).
2021–22 season
For the second season of ALGS, the total prize pool was increased to $5million. EA and Respawn shifted the series to a different format and expanded it to allow
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...
and
PlayStation
is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...
players to compete. Viewership for the second season began slow, with an average viewership of less than 10,000 in North America and EMEA, the two most popular regions, throughout the regular season of first split. The Split One Playoffs saw a significant increase in viewership, peaking at over 300,000 viewers and averaging 55,000 — nearly the same viewership as the inaugural season ALGS Championship. With an
average minute audience
Average minute audience (AMA) is a type of measurement that directly reflects the television audience size. It is calculated by averaging the number of viewers for each minute of programming throughout the event. It is commonly used by broadca ...
of over 539,000 and 10.3million total hours watched, the Split Two Playoffs on May 1, 2022, broke viewership records across all of EA's titles. The ALGS Championship was held at the
PNC Arena
Lenovo Center (originally Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena and formerly RBC Center and PNC Arena) is an list of indoor arenas, indoor arena located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. The arena seats 18,700 for ice hockey and 19,500 ...
in
Raleigh
Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...
, North Carolina on July 7–10. Unlike the previous season, there was only one championship match, with teams from all regions competing. The event had a $2million prize pool, and it marked the first time that the ALGS held a live-audience event. Australian team
DarkZero Esports
DarkZero Esports, or simply DarkZero (DZ), is an American esports organization. Founded in 2018, DarkZero participates in competitive ''Rainbow Six Siege.''
Founding and structure
An American organization, DarkZero Esports was founded in 2018 by ...
won the series' second season.
2022–23 season
For the third season, the prize pool stayed the same as before at $5million. The online regular season for Split 1 of the ALGS Year 3 Pro League began on November 6, 2022. Although Split 1 dropped in viewership by 30%, it peaked at over 500,000 viewers during the playoffs across multiple channels on both
Twitch.tv and
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
. This Split was held at
Copper Box Arena
The Copper Box Arena is a multi-sport venue built for the 2012 Summer Olympics, located in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, England.
Previously known as the Handball Arena, it was renamed because, aside from Handball at the 2012 Summ ...
in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and introduced a new fast-paced format for the finals called Match Point. In this format, a team can only be crowned the victor once they win a game after they have already garnered 50 points.
Team SoloMid
TSM (initialism derived from the previous name Team SoloMid) is a professional esports organization based in the United States. It was founded in September 2009 by Andy Dinh, Andy "Reginald" Dinh. TSM currently fields players in ''Apex Legends' ...
(TSM) ultimately won the Split 1 Playoffs and took home $300,000 and their in-game-leader ImperialHal winning MVP of the tournament.
2023–24 season
The ALGS Year 4 Pro League North American Regional Finals were postponed after multiple competitors experienced hacking incidents where they were given cheats mid-match, including auto-aim and revealing the location of every player in the game.
Easy Anti-Cheat, the anti-cheat software used for Apex Legends, issued a statement on March 18 stating that they were confident the issue did not resolve from a vulnerability within their software.
After the Year 4 Split 2 LAN tournament, EA announced the "BLGS", a series of online open tournaments taking place between the Split 2 LAN and the season's ALGS Championship tournament.
The ALGS Championship was held in February 2025 at the
Daiwa House Premist Dome in
Sapporo, Japan
is a designated city in Hokkaido, Japan. Located in the southwest of Hokkaido, it lies within the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari River. Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido Prefecture and Ishikari Subprefecture ...
. The Greek esports organization GoNext won the championship LAN, its core formerly part of 2R1C and
Blacklist International.
List of winners
Notes
References
External links
*
*
{{Titanfall
Apex Legends Global Series
2020s in esports
Recurring sporting events established in 2019
World championships in esports