It’s 2026, and I still get a little giddy every time I drop into a Control match on Kings Canyon’s Caustic Treatment. You know the feeling—spawning in with an R-99, instantly zipping across a newly balanced lane, and diving headfirst into a hail of bullets to capture B point. But it wasn’t always like this. Do you remember when Control was just an experiment? I do. And let me tell you, the moment that proved this mode wasn’t going anywhere came way back in 2022, during the Warriors Collection Event.

We first got a taste of Control when Defiance launched in January 2022. That initial 9v9 king-of-the-hill chaos was a breath of fresh air in a game built on battle royale tension. It pitted two teams of nine Legends against each other across three control zones on massive maps. The twist? Unlimited respawns. Suddenly, we weren’t punished for reckless pushes—dying just meant regrouping at base and diving right back into the fray. That one change alone remixed the entire Apex formula. Players were pulling off crazy flanks, holding objectives with sheer grit, and discovering that death wasn’t a defeat but a respawn timer in disguise. The community loved it, but then the LTM vanished. Just like that.

Then came March 28, 2022. The Warriors Collection Event dropped, and Respawn brought Control back—but only for a limited window. At the time, I remember thinking, “Why not keep this forever?” I asked myself that every match. The answer didn’t matter yet, because what we got was a revitalized version with a new map that changed everything: Caustic Treatment on Kings Canyon.

Let’s talk about that map for a second. Respawn didn’t just drop an existing POI into the rotation. They rebuilt Caustic Treatment from the ground up for Control. More cover, ziplines snaking between buildings, skydive launchers that tossed you halfway across the battleground, and even a hover tank—yes, a hover tank. The terrain was smoothed and rebalanced so that moving between control points felt faster and more tactical. But the real star was a console at Point B that let players raise toxic levels, turning the entire area into a death trap for invaders. I still chuckle when I see an unsuspecting Octane sprint onto B only to get melted by corrosive gas. Genius.

That Warriors Collection Event didn’t just make us happy with new content—it reshaped the legend meta in ways that still echo today. Because Control is objective-based, movement became king for rotating between points, while area denial reigned supreme for holding them. Pathfinder, Octane, and Mad Maggie were suddenly S-tier for cutting across the map, while Caustic, Gibraltar, and Bangalore made retaking a point feel like storming a fortress. In what other mode can you see a Wattson fence off an entire room while a Valkyrie rains rockets from above, only to have a Fuse Kraber her out of the sky? The Warriors event was the crucible where these strategies were forged, and almost every squad composition you see in 2026’s Control playlist traces its DNA back to the meta shifts we discovered during those two weeks in 2022.

But Control’s return wasn’t the only gift in that update. The Warriors Collection Event also introduced the Arena map “Drop-Off,” set atop Hammond Manufacturing Tower. It was a vertical, industrial playground that felt completely different from the wide-open Control zones. While I spent most of my time grinding Control, sliding into Drop-Off during short breaks offered a tight, 3v3 contrast that reminded me just how versatile Apex had become. New cosmetics, a fresh rewards tracker, and daily challenges kept us logging in every day from March 28 to April 12—and back then, that felt like an eternity.

Looking back from 2026, it’s easy to forget that Control was once a fleeting novelty. That Warriors Collection Event was the turning point. It proved that the Apex community would flock to permanent respawn modes if given the right maps and mechanics. Today, Control is a core playlist with multiple maps rotating alongside Mixtape, and Caustic Treatment still holds a special place in my heart as the map that made me believe. The hover tank is still there. The toxic console still triggers. And every time I hear the “Zone captured” ping, I remember that first match back in 2022 and grin.

So the next time you load into Control and bulldoze your way onto B, ask yourself: would this mode have survived without the Warriors Collection Event? I don’t think so. It turned an experiment into a legacy. And that, my friends, is why Caustic Treatment will always be my king of the hill.