Kings Canyon

**Kings Canyon** is a map for *Apex Legends* located on the planet Solace.

It features an abundance of areas varying from military facilities to slums, with a river dividing it down the middle. It is an island filled with Creatures, and surrounded by water on all sides, with hazardous cliffs that drop to the sea level below.

Different versions of the map have been reused multiple times during its absence from the permanent playlist. A night-time version of the map was also made available during the Shadowfall limited-time mode and the  Grand Soirée event's Kings Canyon Nighttime game mode.

## Lore

### Background

Once a simple settlement on the planet Solace dating back to the earliest expeditions to the Frontier, the island that is known as Kings Canyon, didn't thrive until a century later when the now-defunct IMC chose it as a hub for research and development. It housed an airbase, a water treatment plant, and a plethora of other facilities to support the IMC’s operations - operations like a highly classified project on the function of Phase tech, or a radical program to create a simulacra army powered by a single brain. But on the surface, Kings Canyon seemed like a simple IMC installation that, for all its faults, brought stability and jobs to Solace.

To blow off steam, IMC soldiers station here would compete in gladiator-esque combat in an area they nicknamed 'Thunderdome'. Years later, when the Syndicate commissioned the rebuilding of the island of Kings Canyon as the home of their newest bloodsport, they insisted Thunderdome remain untouched - a tribute to the earliest known predecessor of what we know today as 'The Apex Games'.

### Season 2

An EMP detonated by Crypto in the Repulsor Tower allowed the nearby Flyers and Leviathans to invade the island. The Leviathans made their home in the river and destroyed the settlements on it. The Legends were evacuated and the games were put on hold due to the attack. This respite allowed the Syndicate to add new areas to the map, including a huge structure near the destroyed Bridges and Hydro Dam called **The Cage** and a camp near what was once the Cascades called **Containment**.

### Season 3

Continued disturbances in the arena forced the Syndicate to relocate the games to another arena at Talos known as World's Edge.

### Season 5

The Games eventually returned to Kings Canyon. However, after a failed attempt at killing Revenant, Loba Andrade accidentally set off a chain of explosions in an abandoned simulacrum facility, causing Thunderdome and Skull Town to collapse. A salvage operation was launched under the watchful eye of the Syndicate.

### Season 8

In early 2734, after Fuse was admitted to the Apex Games as its first Salvonian competitor, a ceremony was held on the island to celebrate his entry into the Games and Salvo's entry into Syndicate Space. However, the ceremony was attacked by Salvonian warlord Mad Maggie, dealing significant damage to Kings Canyon and causing the ship used for the ceremony to crash into the northern part of the island.

Fuel leaks from the ship's wreckage prompted ECHO to set up camps and outposts around the crash site to clean up the spreading fuel and prevent it from further contaminating Kings Canyon's waterways. Additionally, Caustic was granted permission to use a refurbished water treatment plant under the guise of assisting with the cleanup.

### Season 14

Later in 2734, the salvage operation at the wreckage of Skull Town was completed. Kings Canyon was terraformed, returning a large swath of land to the crater, and Skull Town was partially rebuilt. Soon after, a ceremony was held in celebration of this task's completion.

## Locations

*Locations in **bold** are marked on the map screen. Non-bold locations' names can only be seen in the top-left corner of the HUD when entering these areas.*

### Movement

* **Ziplines**: Yellow highlighted ziplines are set between certain locations across the map. Players can use them to travel between points across large distances and are activated with the Interact Key. They come in two variants: vertical, which only carry the player up; and horizontal, bi-directional lines that can carry players far distances. Players can drop off with the Jump Key and reconnect to ziplines at any time. Ziplines that are part of the map are permanently connected with tall zipline poles or are connected directly into the environment. Horizontal ziplines can be traveled across in either direction, regardless of incline. Also, note that Pathfinder can create ziplines with his ultimate ability, but can only establish them up to a certain distance and only horizontally. Players cannot interact with zip lines while downed. Wraith cannot use zipline while activating her ultimate ability, as both of her arms are occupied.
* **Balloons**: High altitude red balloons, connected by a vertical zip-line, are scattered throughout the map. Interacting with one of these air balloons will send your legend up the zipline and automatically deploy your glide upon reaching the top, allowing you to traverse the map quickly. You can drop off the balloon zipline at any time by pressing the jump key, but this will not deploy your glide.
* **Doors**: Metal doors typically come in single or double pairs, with large, unbreakable doors being present in certain areas (hangar doors on Hydro Dam, bunker doors on Bunker). Doors can be opened and closed by pressing the interact key, or by shooting the handle with certain weapons. Regular doors can open by being kicked open by using a melee attack on them and broken by melee twice. Bullets do not go through doors but doors can be destroyed by explosive damage.

### Support

* **Respawn Beacons**: Respawn Beacons are scattered all across the map so that players may respawn dead teammates, as long as at least one squad member has retrieved their banner. Respawn beacons are a one-use feature but up to two team members may be respawned at once. Respawn Beacons can be used by any player, but once used, is deactivated for the rest of the match. These beacons are often surrounded by 1-3 supply bins to resupply the respawned teammate. To activate a beacon, hold the interact key while close to it, and after a few seconds teammate will be airlifted in. Unlike while looting a death box, the player cannot strafe while activating the beacon, much like reviving a downed teammate.
* **Charge Towers**: Large towers that can be activated and will fully charge the ultimate ability of all players standing on the platform.
* **Observation Towers**: Located at ECHO camps, these towers can be raised by pressing a button, and will create a vertical zipline after it is finished raising. The spawn rates of sniper weapons, ammo, and attachments are also higher on observation towers.

### Loot

* **Hot Zone**: At the start of each match, a random location on the map is designated as a Hot Zone, indicated by a pulsing blue circle marker. Indicating that, around that area, there will be higher quality loot and a chance of finding a legendary version of a stock weapon, which will have full legendary attachments and use regular ammo.
* **Supply Ship**: At the start of the game, a mobile supply ship travels to a random destination on the map (designated by a blue ship outline marker). The supply ship has an outer deck and an inner hallway and contains a small quantity of mid to high-tier loot.
* **Supply Bins**: Found throughout the map, supply bins are a common source of loot alongside ground loot, supply drops, and the supply ship. These supply bins carry between 1 and 3 items ranging from healing items, grenades, armor, or weapons and their respective ammo. Ordnance is found in groups of 1 while ammo and heals can be found in stacks with double their original amounts.
* **Loot Ticks**: Rare containers that must be destroyed to access their loot. Usually provides Epic or Legendary items. Emit an electronic chip/whir sound when nearby.
* **Loot Bunkers**: Bunkers scattered over Kings Canyon that contain high tier loot, a fixed Legendary item, and a charge tower. They were removed in  Season 8.
* **Explosive Holds**: Locked compartments with high-tier loot that can be opened by planting a grenade at the door.

### Creatures

*Main article:* Creatures
* **Flyers**: Flyers are creatures that carry a death box with randomized loot and drop it upon receiving some damage. Some of them are caged, give no loot, and will alert other players to your presence by emitting a roar.

## Layouts

* Original
* MU1
* MU2
* MU3
* MU4

* Loading Screen

* Original map.

* Loading Screen

* Season 2 map update.
* Iron Crown event added Octane's Gauntlet.
* Voidwalker event added Singh Labs.

* Loading Screen

* Season 5 map update.
* Lost Treasures event added Crypto's Map Room.

* Loading Screen

* Season 8 map update.
* Chaos Theory event added Caustic Treatment.

* Loading Screen

* Season 14 map update.

## Gallery

Concept art
* Concept for the Map.
* Concept art for Kings Canyon.
* Concept art for the Shattered Forest.
* Concept art for the Market.

## History

* Brought back into rotation.

July 14, 2021* Preseason version removed.
* Skull Town POI in Arena removed.

June 29, 2021 Patch* Preseason version brought back during Genesis event.
* Skull Town added as POI in Arena during Genesis event.

May 04, 2021 Patch* Removed from rotation.
* Artillery Battery added as a PoI for  Arenas.

March 23, 2021 Patch* Minor map tweaks to prevent players from getting stuck in the map.

March 09, 2021 Patch* Added Caustic Treatment.
* Removed Mirage Voyage.
* Loot Updates:
	+ The wooden shacks across the map should have a few more pieces each, and generally be a little higher quality.
	+ Spotted Lake has been reduced from High to Medium Quality.
	+ Crash Site has redistributed the loot in the area slightly. The amount stays the same, but the higher quality loot should be on the ship.
	+ Caustic Treatment has more loot than Water Treatment, and it remains High Quality.

March 02, 2021 Patch* Removed Ring ending locations over Mirage Voyage.

February 08, 2021* Temporarily removed from ALGS tournament matches.

February 04, 2021 Patch* Reduced the likelihood of late-game circles ending on Mirage Voyage and The Pit.

February 02, 2021 Patch* Brought back.
* Map update for  Season 8.

January 21, 2021* Removed from rotation.

January 15, 2021* Brought back into rotation for a limited time.
* Brought back The Mirage Voyage.

November 04, 2020 Patch* Removed from rotation.

November 03, 2020* Removed nighttime version.

October 22, 2020* Nighttime version added for Shadow Royale for the  Fight or Fright event.

October 06, 2020 Patch* Added the ability to ping the satellite dish at Crypto's Map Room from the dropship.

September 29, 2020* Season 5 version of map used for the second split of Ranked Season 6.

July 14, 2020* Terminal Station L-19 unlocks.
* The Lost Tomb is available during The Broken Ghost quest.

July 07, 2020* Terminal Station O-240 unlocks.

June 30, 2020* Terminal Station W-73 unlocks.

June 23, 2020 Patch* Added Crypto's Map Room.
* Terminal Station F-85 unlocks.
* Rotation times are now even between Kings Canyon and World's Edge.

May 12, 2020 Patch* Map update for  Season 5.

April 16, 2020* Removed nighttime version.
* Shortened rotation time in Duos and Trios.

April 07, 2020 Patch* Season 2 version of the map and nighttime version added back to the game permanently.
* Increased the total amount of loot that spawns on the map.

March 24, 2020* Season 2 version of map used for the second split of Ranked Season 4.

March 23, 2020* Removed.

March 21, 2020* Season 2 version of map used for limited-time game mode.

March 17, 2020* Removed.

March 10, 2020* Season 2 version used for Deja Loot.

February 24, 2020* Removed.

February 21, 2020* Season 1 version of map used for limited-time game mode.

January 26, 2020* Removed.

January 24, 2020* Nighttime version of map used for Kings Canyon After Dark game mode of the  Grand Soirée event.

November 05, 2019 Patch* Removed nighttime version.

October 15, 2019* Re-added a night-time version for the limited-time game mode Shadowfall for the  Fight or Fright event.

October 01, 2019 Patch* Removed.

September 03, 2019 Patch* Added Singh Labs.

August 13, 2019 Patch* Added Octane's Gauntlet.

July 02, 2019 Patch* Map update for  Season 2.
	+ New Areas:
		- The Cage
		- Creature Containment
		- Nesting Grounds
		- Hillside Outpost
	+ Destroyed Areas:
		- Destroyed Bridges
		- Destroyed Cascades
		- Destroyed River's End

June 04, 2019 Patch* Thunderdome has had some small changes to loot placement, mostly around moving loose loot into bins for more visibility on where the loot is.
* The Pit has about 2x the loot it had previously.
* Repulsor has loot bins added to the west side of the area, on top of the trapezoid buildings.
* Some loot added to the underground pit in the small town in Shattered Forest.
* It is now possible to ping Jump Towers and added voice-over lines that will call out Jump Towers when you ping them.

## Trivia

* Many recurring buildings in Kings Canyon are reused from Titanfall 1's map Runoff and Titanfall 2's map Eden.
* Revenant lives under the tunnels and abandoned facilities beneath the island.
* In Wraith's original dimension, Kings Canyon is a peninsula.

## References

1. ↑ Transition -  A Canyon Built for Kings
2. ↑ Cliff Childs on ArtStation
3. ↑ Cliff Childs on ArtStation
4. ↑ Zac Conely on Twitter
5. ↑ Pathfinder's Quest Chapter 4 - "Identity Theft"