Apex Legends' newest map, E-District, is a small section of a futuristic mega city set in the Apex Legends universe. There are three main sections: North side, which contains very high end luxury accommodations and resorts, the South side, which has a more gritty/cyberpunk feel, and the middle section, which houses the electricity power management for the city. All three sections are separated by a giant 200 ft wall, which are shown here by the brighter pink/purple shapes.
In Apex Legends, the map is a crucial piece of gameplay user interface. Players use it to navigate to various points of interest, find ziplines and vehicles, and to know which structures are enterable and contain weapons and ammo. The edges of the playable area are designed with unique styles for the coastline and mountain ranges. The grey shapes on the map are enterable buildings, while the purple shapes are non-enterable, and serve as a way to separate unique areas and create choke-points between them. As UI artists, we aim to add lots of little details that make the areas of the map more distinct, and give players clues to useful gameplay information. Some of those details include: Orange lines to show zipline locations, fainter orange lines to show elevated areas/walls/stairs, brighter ground textures to show sloped inclines, faint blue areas to show water, subtle ground textures to show concrete/grass/metal/dirt, and subtle glows on areas that highlight key points of interest.
