Apex Legends unleashes the Monsters Within for this year's Halloween event

Just when you thought nothing in Apex Legends could be scarier than trying to climb through ranked matchmaking, Respawn's battle royale announces another year of Halloween festivities. And this time around, our dear old Legends are unleashing their darkest sides in the Monsters Within event.

Announced this afternoon, Monsters Within doesn't just bring in a fresh batch of Halloween outfits, but also a brand new arenas map. Themed after new Legend Seer, Encore features an open performance stage and a VIP lounge, facilitating your most stylish plays. Hardly spooky, but after a strong showing with Overflow, I've been excited to see more bespoke Arenas maps.

An overview of the new Apex map, Encore. — (Image credit: Respawn Entertainment)

Of course, it wouldn't be a Halloween event without spooky cosmetics, and this year's outfits feel a proper step up over previous years. Revenant, already a spooky skeleton man, now has a werewolf head bursting out of his usual robot skull, while Caustic's tummy features a tiny alien controlling the gassy doctor like a fleshy meat-mech.

Even my dear Horizon, who I often moan about getting naff outfits, comes out swinging with a creepy extra-terrestrial infected look.

Monsters Within kicks off on the slightly less-spooky date of October 12. But to kick up the scares, the final week of the event (starting October 26) brings back Shadow Royale, a limited-time mode that takes place on a midnight version of King's Canyon. Playing like regular battle royale, dying in Shadow Royale sees you come back to life in shadow-form, respawning endlessly until the last living non-shadow player on your team bites the dust.

Hopefully, Monsters Within avoids the very real scares that happened with Apex's last event, with the Evolution Collection Event somehow obliterating the game's network infrastructure. Monsters Within will run until November 2, at which point we'll likely discover what's in store for Apex Legends' 11th season.

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.