[4] During its first year of release, the esports scene around Apex included a "pub stomp"-formatted tournament hosted by Twitch Rivals.
[5] On December 17, EA announced an open tournament dubbed the "Apex Legends Global Series", or ALGS.
[11] This first edition of ALGS play saw the release of different seasons of the game,[b] which are often accompanied by new characters, weapons, and purchasable cosmetic items.
[14] For example, season 6 of the game (dubbed "Boosted") was rolled out in August 2020, introducing Rampart and updating the World's Edge map,[12] which was used in professional ALGS play.
[15] The gameplay of professional Apex features a frequently changing meta and players were noted to incorporate different playstyles or use different characters throughout the ALGS season.
[16] These meta changes also came in the form of game balancing updates, such as a nerf to Valkyrie's tactical hover ahead of the 2021 ALGS Championships.
[17] Though organized as an open tournament, eligible players "must live in one of 60 approved countries and meet minimum age and PC processing requirements".
[1] Although the Arlington Major was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, EA announced that the Global Series Online Tournament #2 taking place from March 21–23 would continue as scheduled.
[22] In May 2020, EA and Respawn announced a remote Summer Circuit tournament taking place from June 20 through September 13.
[25] The Summer Circuit was open to players meeting the eligibility criteria of having achieved a Gold IV rank on PC in Split 1 of Series 4 by June 18.
[15] The circuit was played on the World's Edge map and on the game's Season 7 version, which released in October 2020 and introduced the character Horizon.
[15] NRG narrowly won the Winter Circuit in the North American region, finishing with a total of 79 points; their roster included Nathan "Nafen" Nguyen, Aidan "rocker" Gordin, and Chris "sweetdreams" Sexton.
[34] EA and Respawn initially set the total prize pool for the championship tournaments at USD$1 million.
[40] The org's roster comprised Mikkel "Mande" Hestbek, Can "Taisheen" Öztürk and Dan "rprx" Ušić, who were picked up in March ahead of the Winter Circuit finals.
[22] The Winter Circuit was live streamed on official Apex Legends accounts on Twitch, YouTube, and Mildom.
[30][34] According to Respawn, the Winter Circuit saw an increase of more than 50% in average audience per minute during the playoffs, reaching over 100,000 viewers in the process.