Apex Legends was leaked last year, but nobody believed it

By Aaron Mamiit Updated March 15, 2021

Apex Legends, the battle royale shooter that came out of nowhere as a worthy challenger to Fortnite, was actually leaked last year on Reddit.

Apex Legends quickly escalated from a mere rumor in early February to a massivly successful game with more than 1 million players in just eight hours after launch. Set in the Titanfall universe, the battle royale shooter was not hyped up prior to its release — which makes its ascent that much more intriguing.

The game wouldn’t have been such a massive surprise if people had believed a leak that was posted on the forum last year, as pointed out by a Reddit user who goes by name of Fubbles22. He created a thread on the Apex Legends sub-Reddit that linked to a post on the Titanfall sub-Reddit titled “Alleged Minimap for Rumored Titanfall Battle Royal Game.”

The 11-month-old thread contains a surprising image for Apex Legends fans. Some of the names of the areas and its orientation were changed, but the leaked image is undoubtedly the King’s Canyon map that is currently playable.

On the original thread, Reddit users criticized the person who uploaded the image, who goes by the name “hiticonic.” There were only 14 comments in the thread, but most of them thought that the alleged leak was fake.

Meanwhile, in the new thread that linked to the leak from a year ago, community manager Jay Frechette joined the discussion. “Haha I remember this! It was a relief to see folks blow it off and I was thinking, ‘well, he’ll be able to say I was right when next year comes along’,” he wrote.

Hiticonic also appeared on the thread, jokingly asking for the upvotes that he should have received last year when he posted the leak. He also denied allegations that he was an employee of Respawn, but did not reveal how he got a hold of the Apex Legends map last year.

Leaked or not, Apex Legends is here. Respawn Entertainment has since released a few updates since the game’s launch, including the Havoc energy rifle as the first new gun. For gamers interested in finding out what the fuss is all about, here is an Apex Legends beginner’s guide.

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