I haven’t played enough of Apex Legends’ new map, Broken Moon, to properly form an opinion of it that’s more in-depth than ‘it looks really pretty’ yet, but it does look really pretty. There’s variety in the POIs, plenty of colourful areas, and possibly the most beautiful skybox Apex has used to date.
When Season 15 dropped, instead of jumping into battle like most players, I dropped solo in the most obscure locations I could find. Far away from the dropship’s flight path, I landed and slowly meandered into the zone. One game, I even made it to second, but usually, I was killed well before that. My K/D ratio damned, I was going to explore this map if it killed me. Literally.
That’s when I found the ziprails. I’d avoided them before now because of their predictability. The Apex community is split, half of the players think the ziprails invite third parties too easily, and they allow you to reposition into hurt teams too quickly, whereas the others believe that the predictability of where those third parties arrive from helps you reset and take them on. For me, though, how important they were for fighting was immaterial. I was going to use them for sightseeing.
Zipping across the map quickly is the perfect tour of Broken Moon. You might start in the built-up factorial area of Terraformer, but after banking around impossibly steep mooncliffs and passing over opponents fighting to the death, you emerge through a cavern in the cliffs and see the majesty of Eternal Gardens spread out in front of you.
The map designers talked to us about designing the heaven and hell aspects of Broken Moon, but you don’t really understand how stark the contrast is between POIs until you zip between them at breakneck speeds. While the grey cliffs may invite comparisons to Storm Point, and the size is definitely comparable to World’s Edge, each POI is effectively its own combat arena, separated from the others by a wall of cliffs on most sides. This separation has clearly allowed the designers to give each POI a very different feel, and the ziprails are the most effective way to rotate between them. As a sightseer, that’s perfect.
While we’re exploring Eternal Gardens, a monument to a tragic event on the planet below, I must tell you about the other mode of transport on Broken Moon. Eternal Gardens’ central tower houses the map’s one jump tower, and it’s an experience. I never thought I’d have a favourite jump tower, but Eternal Gardens has changed my mind.
Entirely enclosed in beautiful stained glass windows, the journey to the top of the vertical zipline is simply magical. When you emerge, the moon is yours to conquer. I usually head towards the nearest ziprail, but I am in explorer mode rather than fighting mode. You can see the nearby POIs, but it’s better to let your focus drift and look at the bigger picture.
You can watch the shadows of orbital meteors fly across the ground as moonshards the size of buildings thunder overhead. You can see the scars where ferrofluid is being harvested and the Syndicate is destroying Cleo’s surface. Broken Moon tells a story more than any other Apex map, and the large, varied POIs are a joy to explore. Treat yourself, hop on a ziprail away from the zone, and take a breather from the fighting to enjoy your surroundings.