Apex Legends maps out Ranked overhaul for Seasons 31 and 32

Respawn has laid out a major Ranked overhaul for Apex Legends across Season 31 and Season 32, starting with Legend Bans in Diamond-and-above matches in November and ending with a reworked tier structure, new ranks and a scoring reset in early 2027.

In its ranked roadmap, the developer says the next two seasons are meant to make Ranked “the most competitive way to play Apex Legends,” while also making it more rewarding, more readable and easier to trust. Respawn also says the roadmap is not complete, with more updates planned beyond Season 32.

Legend bans and lobby-based scoring arrive in Season 31

Season 31 will introduce one of the biggest competitive changes yet: Legend Banning in Diamond+ matches. Respawn says the feature will go live alongside Drop Zone deployment, which means any match that includes Diamond-or-higher players will use the ban system.

The pre-match flow will add a dedicated banning phase. Each player in the lobby will choose one Legend for possible banning, and once everyone has selected or the timer expires, the chosen Legends will show their chance of being banned. Respawn says the chance is based on the total number of votes for each Legend, with more votes increasing the odds. The game then randomly selects which Legends are removed, and players move on to Legend selection with banned Legends unavailable.

Respawn says it did not simply choose to ban the most-voted Legends. The studio says that would create a new banning meta, which would work against the goal of keeping picks varied at the top end of Ranked. The team also says it will monitor the system and continue iterating after launch.

Season 31 will also bring scoring adjustments for what Respawn calls wide-skill lobbies. The developer says Ranked matchmaking still tries to balance queue times with lobby width, but periods of low population can create matches with a very large spread of Rank Tiers. To make those games feel fairer, entry costs will be adjusted based on the lobby’s “Lobby Tier,” which Respawn describes as the median of all squads in the match.

That creates two new match labels:

• Challenger matches for squads two or more Rank Tiers below the Lobby Tier, with reduced entry costs.
• Goliath matches for squads two or more Rank Tiers above the Lobby Tier, with increased entry costs.

Respawn says the goal is to show players what kind of lobby they are entering before the match begins, instead of hiding the adjustment until the end. The studio gives an example where a Gold lobby would treat Bronze squads as Challengers and a Diamond squad as a Goliath.

Alongside those changes, access to Ranked is being opened up again. Respawn is removing Road to Ranked challenges and returning access to the mode to an Account Level 20 requirement. The developer says the challenge set did not work as well as intended, and that some players needed too much time to complete it. Respawn also says its anti-cheat team is working on the competitive integrity concerns that come with easier access.

UI clarity changes are also part of Season 31. Demotion Protection, an existing feature that was not clearly surfaced before, will get more visible presentation for players. When a player is at risk of being demoted to a lower Rank Tier from a single match, they will receive three Demotion Shields. Each time they would lose enough RP to be demoted, one shield is consumed. Demotion only happens after all three shields are used or the player gains enough RP to leave that protected state.

Season 32 splits Ranked into Open League and Pro-Am League

Season 32, which Respawn says is targeted for early 2027, is where the larger restructure lands. The studio says Ranked has long had two main groups: more casually competitive players who jump in for a split and then move on, and top-end players who stay in the grind and usually finish in Diamond or Masters. For the first time, Apex will formally recognize those groups with two separate tracks: Open League and Pro-Am League.

The most visible part of that change is a new tier structure.

• Iron Rank replaces Rookie Rank and is treated like a standard rank for all players.
• Emerald Rank sits between Platinum and Diamond, with four divisions and a new badge design.
• Grandmaster Rank becomes the top rung of the Ranked ladder.

Respawn says Emerald is also the new threshold between Open League and Pro-Am League, and that it should help ease the bottleneck players often feel once they reach Diamond. In addition, Emerald will be represented in Auras, so the new rank is visible both in and out of matches.

Grandmaster is being positioned as the ceiling for the ladder, and Predator is changing too. Respawn says that to earn a Predator badge at the end of a season, a player will need to finish in the top 750 of Grandmaster.

Open League will be the path for aspiring Ranked players, and Respawn says all matches there will start in the Dropship. The studio also says RP values will be rebalanced around the addition of Emerald, so players may need to recalibrate how far they can climb based on their previous seasons.

The Pro-Am League will contain Diamond, Masters and Grandmaster tiers. Masters will also expand to four divisions, which Respawn says is meant to reflect the commitment required to reach Grandmaster. Pro-Am is where Drop Zone deployment and Legend Banning will live.

RP math gets flattened and rewards change

Season 32 also brings a full scoring overhaul. Respawn says it wants Ranked progression to feel more gradual, more consistent and easier to understand, with RP that does not require a calculator.

The first major change is score flattening. Respawn says kill value will no longer scale up based on final placement, which had encouraged aggressive hot drops and players trying to “hold” kills through later rounds. Instead, each kill will be worth a set amount of RP, and each placement will also be worth a set amount of RP. The developer says this should even out pacing and make the choice between fights and survival more straightforward.

Team scoring is changing too. Respawn says players will get full kill RP from every kill their team gets, regardless of personal contribution. Assists and participations are being removed. The studio says this is meant to better reward team effort, especially for players who support the squad rather than taking every finishing blow.

Entry costs are also being made more granular, with increases applied at each division instead of each tier. The announcement cuts off before the full explanation, but Respawn says the broader goal is to make progression more predictable and more distinct between average players and top-end players.

Ranked rewards are changing alongside the ladder. Respawn says players can expect new Seasonal Auras, new ways to use Auras, a revisit to Ranked Dive Trails, Epic and Legendary Apex Packs, and rewards on promotion rather than only at the end of the season. The studio says more details, including visuals, will come closer to Season 32’s launch.

Respawn ends the roadmap by saying there are still more changes to come, both in the short term and after Season 32, and that each season will bring more detailed information as launch gets closer.