Apex Legends goes directly to jail for a 2-week Unshackled event

The Apex Legends gang has been a naughty bunch. But being a bunch of professional murderers, they've broken free for the game's carceral-themed Unshackled event, kicking off next Tuesday with new looks and a returning LTM.

First debuted back in season 6, Flashpoint is a limited mode that sees health and shield items removed from the map (Olympus this time) in place of, well, Flashpoints—small regions that provide constant healing to anyone inside. While you can craft Phoenix Kits for a fee, any and all healing will require locking down one of these zones, so expect to put up a fight to bandage up those skinned knees.

The other half of this event, meanwhile, dolls several legends up in prison-themed getups. It's not a theme I'm particularly huge on, though there are still some gems—Crypto's new banner having him pull up in a car with a chirpy wee drone is certainly a highlight, as is Valk's extremely good pastel undercut. Like previous smaller events, these cosmetics will also stick around permanently, something I'm always happy to see more of.

That said, we just had a pretty stellar event in Warriors featuring the return of Apex's secret best mode and probably the best Horizon skin Respawn has ever made. But not every event needs to be a fundamental game-changer, and keeping up this cadence of small and large events should help keep Apex from ever feeling stagnant.

Unshackled kicks off next Tuesday, April 14, and runs until May 3rd—at which point we'll be preparing to see what's in store with Apex Legends' next season. Assuming it hasn't all been leaked already.

Natalie Clayton
Features Producer

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.

Read more
A Guardian with a grenade launcher and a very fancy hat.
Destiny 2's new episode hits next week, sending players back into the giant, haunted spaceship where the first game had its finest moments
New Spring Festival costume
Marvel Rivals' upcoming Spring Festival introduces a few pretty cool skins and a new game mode that has a stark resemblance to Lucioball
Destiny 2 Rite of the Nine: The Emissary, massive, ominously standing at the edge of a water basin.
Oops! Bungie rolled out Destiny 2's Rite of the Nine event three weeks early, and new loot is already dropping
Horizon and Crypto, mean and ready for action
EA CEO says the magic words 'Apex 2.0': It won't happen until after the next Battlefield, but 'this will not be the final incarnation of Apex'
overwatch loot box
Overwatch 2 is bringing loot boxes back from the dead
Le Sserafim Overwatch 2 collab
Overwatch 2 is launching another Le Sserafim collab with 'more transformative' skin designs, guided by Blizzard Korea Studio's keen eye for Korean trends and street style
Latest in Battle Royale
Shohei Ohtani wearing Samurai Shohei outfit in Fortnite
The best baseball player alive is coming to Fortnite, and so is his dog
Fortnite jacked Peter Griffin
Parents are suing Epic over Fortnite item shop 'FOMO' timers they say are inaccurate and manipulative
talk to the joneses fortnite
Epic's war against the Fortnite fraudsters sees it simultaneously name and shame alleged ne'er-do-wells as its high-powered lawyers sue them
Twisted Metal - Sweet Tooth
Apparently the canceled Twisted Metal game would have been a battle royale where you could get out of your car for some reason
talk to the joneses fortnite
Epic will give Fortnite cheaters 'a second chance' with a new, more forgiving ban policy, as long as they didn't do anything too awful or illegal
Fortnite skin for Master Chief from Halo
Don't stress, Epic Games says you can still unlock Fortnite's Xbox-exclusive Master Chief skin
Latest in News
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft reportedly has an anti-harassment plan in place for Assassin's Creed Shadows developers
Avowed Kai holding out his hand toward camera while explaining something to the player.
Avowed's new patch just gave you 6 more talent points to muck around with, along with a heap of fixes and improvements
In-game recreation of iconic Indiana Jones stealing the idol in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Silent Hill 2 remake and Indiana Jones are at historically low prices this Steam Spring Sale—so long as you don't buy them directly from Steam
MSI RTX 5070 Ti Gaming Trio OC Plus graphics card under a red light
This MSI Afterburner file unlocks 36 Gbps RTX 50-series memory overclocks for, y'know, the few people that actually own a card
A Steam Deck with SteamOS running in desktop mode.
A new and improved desktop experience just landed on Steam Deck and SteamOS is readying 'support for non-Steam Deck handhelds'
Olivia, a hunter from Monster Hunter Wilds, looks perplexed in an icy blue environment.
Monster Hunter Wilds players wonder if frenzied monsters are a little undercooked, as one slaps a sickly bird into a fine paste in just 25 seconds