A slew of significant changes are slated for Respawn Entertainment's fast-moving battle royale, Apex Legends. Ahead of the game’s 16th season of content, the developer outlined a fresh onboarding experience for new players, an entire rejigging from the game's class system for its characters that introduces new perks, the introduction of team deathmatches, and a 'Mixtape' limited time mode rotation, on top of a brand new weapon, along with other changes.
This news comes soon after publisher Electronic Arts announced the closure of Apex Legends Mobile, despite the game receiving Bet on the entire year honours from both Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and seemingly having a healthy and active community. It appears that a renewed concentrate on bringing in fresh and returning players towards the main game may be the goal here, as Apex Legends reaches its 4th anniversary.
'The sunsetting of Apex Legends Mobile has no effect on the development of Apex Legends,' said Steve Ferreira, Game Director, inside a media briefing for the Revelry update. The goal of these changes would be to 'take a tough consider the game experience', 't be 'precious about anything – things are up for grabs for changing or cutting' and also to open up 'opportunities for players to get into the game with less competitive modes'.
Here's a short overview of all the changes being made:
Apex Legends Revelry: Season 16 Updates
- Class System Update
- List of Characters and Classes
- Assault
- Skirmisher
- Recon
- Controller
- Support
- Legend Updates
- Mode Updates
- Team Deathmatch
- New First-Time Player Experience
- Orientation Matches
- Firing Range changes
- New Weapon
- Release Date
Class System Update
- Apex Legends characters will be rearranged into a whole new class system, to higher define their roles hanging around, that have evolved because it launched in 2023.
- Some classes, according to Devan McGuire, Lead Legend Designer, have been 'losing their meaning', and didn't fit the way in which characters were used.
- Each character will come with an extra perk unique for their class – with details in the future.
List of characters and classes:
Assault
The Assault class focuses on combat utility and initiation. Characters include: Ash, Fuse, Maggie, and Bangalore.
Skirmisher
Skirmishers focus on mobility and escape, master flanking, and have a 'hit and run' type of play' Characters include: Pathfinder, Horizon, Octane, Wraith, and Mirage.
Recon
Recon characters focus on collecting intel on either the map, or enemy characters. They include: Bloodhound, Seer, Crypto, and Vantage.
Controller
Controllers concentrate on area control, creating an advantageous battleground for their allies. They include: Watson, Caustic, Rampart, and Catalyst.
Support
Support characters focus on keeping the team supplied and alive. They include: Lifeline, Loba, Newcastle, and Gibralter.
Legend Updates
- A quantity of Legends, for example Wraith, Lifeline, and Seer, will receive further modifications to their own personal character toolkit, on top of their classic perks. More details are set to get to the next days.
- Apex Legends season 16 will feature no new Legend.
- Evan Nikolich, Design Director says this is because for players to obtain accustomed to these new, sweeping changes.
Mode Updates
Apex Legends will be removing its Arenas mode, and replacing it using the much-requested Team Deathmatch, a staple of many online multiplayer shooters.
Mixtape will also be added like a unique mode that rotates through several limited-time modes, such as Control and Gunrun. Marty Wong, Game Mode Designer, said the team wants people to 'feel comfortable making mistakes' in lower-stakes modes.
Team Deathmatch
- Apex Legends Team Deathmatch will be a 6v6 mode with quick respawns.
- Win conditions include 30 kills to win a round, 2 rounds to win a game title.
- You'll be able to pick a pre-configured weapon loadout, and switch Legends and loadout on respawn.
- Other weapons can be procured inside a match.
- Maps include: Party Crasher, Habitat 4, and Skulltown.
- The mode will stick around for 3 weeks after the launch of season 16, and is going to be added in to the new Mixtape Mode
New first-time player experience
In an attempt to cater to brand-new Apex Legends players, the sport will be introducing a brand new onboarding experience that forces fresh accounts to tackle a series of bot-filled Orientation Matches before they are able to jump into the main matchmaking pool.
The game will also incorporate a series of challenges that guide players into becoming conscious of the less obvious mechanics of the game – things like kicking down doors, and swapping shields. The game's Firing Range can also be set to get numerous changes to become a more great tool for everyone.
Orientation Matches
- New Apex Legends players is going to be put in Orientation matches prior to them getting matchmade into real battle royale matches.
- These games will be made up of 16 teams of bots, and up to 4 squads of recent players.
- Orientation Matches take place around the King's Canyon map.
- If a new player has more knowledgeable friends, they are able to join the Orientation squad to help.
- Once the brand new player either Wins a match, gets enough top 10 placements, or simply plays enough games, they'll graduate from Orientation matches.
- The bots will get a little bit harder as the matches progress.
Firing Range Changes
- The Apex Legends Firing Range will discover a number of new options, including the ability to set dummy movements – strafe direction, speed, crouch status, and shield amount
- New hit indicators will help players understand spray patterns, and there is going to be damage numbers.
- There is now unlimited ammo, so you don't have to break your concentration to go back and fill up.
New Weapon
Apex Legends will introduce a fresh gun in its Revelry update – a burst assault rifle called the Nemesis.
Lead Weapons Designer Evan Canavese says the team has purposely designed the gun to become a strong option, looking to alter the present game meta, which sees the R301 and Flatline rifles dominating.
- It fires inside a 4-round burst by having an automatic trigger – so as long while you keep holding it down, it'll continue to burst-fire.
- The delay between bursts will reduce the longer you fire it.
- The gun holds onto that reduced burst delay for a small amount of time – and therefore it can persist during reloads.
- The Nemesis uses Energy Ammo, and can have its own barrel, magazine, and stock attachments.
Apex Legends Revelry Release Date
The Apex Legends Revelry update releases on 14 February 2023.
Apex Legends can be obtained on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
