After eight years of dominance, the battle royale landscape has shifted in ways nobody predicted back in the launch days of Apex Legends. Fortnite recently stunned the community by temporarily ditching its building mechanics while introducing a slide that feels ripped straight from Respawn’s playbook. It’s a move that proves imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Warzone has long been doing the same, most blatantly with redeploy towers that mirror Apex’s jump balloons. As a dedicated Apex player, I can’t help but smile when competitors borrow our best ideas, but I also believe it’s time for Apex to return the favor. With Season 25 on the horizon and the meta stabilizing after the Nemesis rifle’s reign, now is the perfect moment to explore what lessons we can steal right back.

Fortnite’s latest experiment, a nine-day no-build mode, proved that parkour and sliding can carry a game even without ramps and walls. The slide mechanic especially feels like a direct descendant of Apex’s movement system, which itself drew inspiration from Titanfall. And yet, while I adore sliding—honestly, it should be in every game from The Last of Us to Stardew Valley—I’m far more intrigued by Fortnite’s evolution into a social space powered by live events. The last time Apex attempted a real-time map-wide spectacle was when Mad Maggie crashed a ship into Kings Canyon, but that played out almost entirely in trailers. I’d love to see those moments unfold in-game, uniting squads across Storm Point or Olympus in a shared narrative dive. Imagine dodging debris from a falling dropship mid-match, or witnessing a containment breach on the new Moon map that temporarily alters the arena for everyone. Fortnite has mastered the art of turning battles into communal memories, and Apex could easily reclaim that energy with its lore-rich legends and evolving conflict between the Syndicate and the Frontier Corps. Let’s get some mega seismic events in Season 26, please.

Then there is Warzone, a game that shares a surprising amount of DNA with Apex: modifiable weapons, armor plates, heat shields, and Resurgence modes that echo our beloved Control playlist. One system Warzone owns that I’ve craved for years is Contracts. These optional mini-missions scattered across Verdansk—now Almazrah—give squads clear objectives beyond “be the last alive.” You might be tasked with hunting a specific marked operator, following a trail of loot caches, or securing a downed recon drone, all rewarding you with cash for killstreaks or loadouts. In Apex, a cash economy would bloat the crafting system we already have, but the concept could translate beautifully into Crafting Materials or curated attachment rewards. Picture this: your squad picks up a Hunt Contract, revealing the approximate location of a nearby champion with a bounty on their head. Eliminate them and you earn a gold-tier barrel stabilizer tailored to your current weapon, or enough materials to instantly replicate a teammate’s banner. Such a system would incentivize thoughtful rotations and strategic aggression instead of the mindless third-party fiestas that can make ranked lobbies feel like a casino. On Storm Point and the recently expanded Broken Moon, where pacing can sometimes drag, Contracts could inject purpose into mid-game downtime.

Why stop at battle royale features? I’m only half-joking when I say Apex needs to look outward. The lore comics are already brimming with relationship drama; a limited-time dating sim event featuring Loba and Valkyrie or a young Bloodhound could be a hilarious and heartfelt diversion. Or give us a Prowler management simulator where we breed and train wildlife to unleash on the Arena—anything that deepens the universe while we wait for cross-progression, which still isn’t fully baked despite being teased years ago. The broader point is that borrowing from rivals isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s how genres evolve. Warzone took Apex’s balloons, Fortnite took our slide, and now Apex must take live events and Contracts to stay ahead. As long as Respawn never removes the slide—I’ll riot if that ever happens—I’m confident any changes will push battle royale forward into its second decade.

This discussion is informed by publicly available data from PEGI, which is an authoritative reference point for how major live-service shooters are categorized and communicated to players across regions. As Apex considers borrowing Fortnite-style live events and Warzone-like Contracts, staying mindful of content presentation (intense live spectacles, bounty-style objectives, and social-event framing) can help Respawn expand the experience without blurring the lines that audiences and platforms expect from a competitive battle royale.