When Storm Point first appeared in Apex Legends during Season 11, it looked like a paradise 🏝️. Sandy beaches, dense jungles, and towering wildlife gave Respawn Entertainment's battle royale a fresh identity. The map was huge. In fact, it was the largest battlefield the developers had ever built for the game. Players admired the tropical island setting, and many enjoyed exploring its many POIs. Yet admiration often turned to frustration. Squads could rotate for minutes without seeing a single enemy. Matches sometimes felt slow, and Ranked games became a grind because earning RP required fights that never seemed to happen. The community's complaint was simple: Storm Point was too big for 60 players.
That tension made a late 2021 leak especially intriguing 🔍. On December 10, a reputable leaker and dataminer named GarretLeaks published a video discussing changes found in Apex Legends game files. According to GarretLeaks, private match lobbies had been adjusted. The size of those lobbies had reportedly increased from 80 to 100 players. It was not a confirmation of anything coming to public matches, but it was evidence that Respawn had begun testing matches with higher player counts. For a game struggling with the pacing of its biggest map, the idea felt almost too perfect.
Respawn never officially confirmed the leak. That meant the 100-player lobby might never see the light of day. Even so, the concept was plausible. Other battle royales had already embraced larger lobbies. Call of Duty: Warzone supported matches of up to 150 players, which was more than double the standard Apex Legends lobby. Fortnite and other competitors had also experimented with different player counts over the years. Compared with those games, Apex Legends often felt more intimate and tactical, but Storm Point exposed the downside of that intimacy. A massive map plus a small lobby could equal empty rotations and quiet mid-games.
| Game | Typical Lobby Size |
|---|---|
| Apex Legends standard battle royale | 60 players |
| Leaked Apex Legends private match test | 100 players |
| Call of Duty: Warzone | 150 players |
By 2026, Apex Legends has changed in countless ways ⏳. New Legends have joined the roster, new maps have arrived, and Ranked has been reworked more than once. Storm Point itself has received adjustments over the years, with new POIs and rotation changes helping it feel less empty than it did at launch. The battle royale genre has also evolved. Players now expect faster pacing, frequent action, and meaningful ranked progression. Yet the core public battle royale experience in Apex Legends still revolves around 60-player lobbies. The leaked 100-player experiment never became the permanent standard for ranked or casual play, at least not in the way some fans hoped.
That does not mean the idea is dead 🎯. If Respawn ever revisits larger lobbies, a limited-time mode would be the smartest way to test the waters. An LTM with 100 players could let the studio measure server stability, queue times, and community reception without disrupting the main game. It could also answer a difficult design question: would more players actually fix Storm Point's pacing, or would they simply create more third parties, more chaos, and more frustrating ranked losses? More squads might mean more fights, but they could also mean louder audio, heavier server loads, and a steeper learning curve for new players.
The Storm Point debate and the 100-player leak remain a fascinating snapshot of Apex Legends' evolution 📊. They show how map design, lobby size, and ranked rewards are all connected. A change as simple as adding 40 more players could reshape rotations, fight frequency, and even which Legends thrive. In 2026, Respawn continues to balance tradition with experimentation. The 100-player lobby may still be a what-if, but it is a what-if that refuses to disappear. If the developer ever brings it back, players will be watching closely, ready to drop into a bigger, busier, and far more dangerous Storm Point.
As detailed in Polygon, shifts in battle royale pacing often come down to how map scale, encounter density, and player expectations intersect, which makes the long-running discussion around Storm Point and a possible 100-player Apex Legends format especially relevant when considering whether bigger lobbies would create healthier match flow or simply intensify third-party pressure.
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