The new season of Apex Legends is here! Arsenal launches today and ushers in a ton of new content and updates, including a new Legend, major map updates to World’s Edge, and so much more. Here are the features I’m the most excited for, but you can expect a ton more content when you jump into Apex Legends today and throughout this season!
Before the Apex Games, a more brutal competition held sway: the Thunderdome Games! Here, sibling fighters Sok Leng and Kit Siang Phua reigned supreme. They were joined by August Brinkman, Sok Leng’s eventual husband. But when August’s selfish playstyle led to Kit Siang’s death, August would retreat from the Games, from Sok Leng, and from their young son, Nate. August spent decades as a recluse. When Nate decides to follow his family’s legacy into the arena, August returns to strike a deal to reenter the Games in his son’s place.
New Legend – Ballistic
Ballistic is described as a refined older gentleman living with a beast inside, which sounds to me like a disgruntled old man yelling at Loot Ticks to get off his lawn. My kind of Legend (I’m a refined older gamer). He sports some interesting passive, tactical, and ultimate abilities, including a pistol with a smart bullet that tracks down its target, disrupting their weapon while causing them damage; the ability to carry three weapons (the slung weapon stored in the third slot cannot be upgraded with attachments); and the power to buff nearby teammates with increased speed and unlimited ammo – while upgrading his slung third weapon to a golden version of that weapon. As someone who likes to carry a sniper rifle but seldom does since it’s not ideal for every situation, this is an appealing ability.
With all the sweeping changes added last season including the introduction of classes and perks, we didn’t get a new Legend, so I’m excited we’re back in the cadence of one being added with this season and can’t wait to see him in action! Read more about Ballistic, including his backstory, class perks, and abilities at the official website.
Map Update – World’s Edge
World’s Edge is getting a major makeover with some big changes to the existing layout. There’s a new vault to the north, Skyhook experienced a recent snowfall, smoke is clearing from the sky, the lava fissures are cooling off, but perhaps the biggest recognizable change I can’t wait to check out is the addition of the Monument Point of Interest. Nestled near the center of the map, this museum honors Apex’s past, present, and future with exhibits ranging from tribal artifacts to abstract sculptures. There’s even a gift shop, though I doubt it sells equipment and ammo.
Other significant changes include modifications to the Harvester and Lava City areas. The construction stack in Fragment West, arguably the most popular and combat intensive landing spot in World’s Edge, is being relocated to the Lava City area to the south. This change is sure to shake up the tactical approach to the start of each match. There are also a few other surprises you’re sure to notice the next time you jump into World’s Edge this season.
Ground Up Remodel – Firing Range
Firing Range has been completely overhauled and with its grand reopening in the Arsenal Update it has so much more to offer players looking to hone their skills and test out the arsenal of weapons. The Firing Range now offers an agility course for you to practice your movements, training grounds to simulate combat with programmable test dummies that shoot back, and a duel pit where you can battle it out against your friends in a little player versus player action. My Player Two and I used to do this in the old Firing Range, so the fact we now have an actual dedicated spot for dueling is a welcomed surprise. Whether you’re a new, current, or returning player, you should check out the new improved Firing Range. Who knows, you might learn a thing or two and have fun while doing it. I know I will!
New Progression System – Weapon Mastery
With the Weapon Mastery Progression System, every weapon can be leveled up by using the weapon (in any game mode) and completing challenges related to that weapon. Rewards are earned along the way including a Legendary Weapon Apex Pack specific to each weapon you master, culminating in a unique banner frame once you’ve mastered them all.
This is a great strategy to encourage players new and old to earn rewards for varying their loadout and learning the capabilities of each weapon. I am a big fan of completing the daily, weekly, special event challenges, and I’m excited about having even more tasks to track and complete for rewards just for playing the game.
New Survival Slot Item – Evac Tower
Previously, you could equip a heat shield or mobile respawn beacon in the Survival Slot, but with the Apex Legends Arsenal update, you can now equip the Evac Tower. This item can be found in all the same places as most other items – on the ground, inside loot bins, and on care packages. They are essentially a mobile Jump Tower and can be used to traverse the map quickly – either towards or away from combat, depending on your team’s style of play. They’re also great for pouncing on care packages or escaping from ring closures.
Activating the Evac Tower will launch a rocket into the air, which will then deploy a giant balloon, like the giant red balloons used by the Jump Towers. A zip line will anchor the balloon to the spot, and the Evac Tower will be ready for operation. Once used, you will ascend to the balloon, and then you can skydive to your next destination.
A few notes about the Evac Tower. It’s not permanent, its health deteriorates over time and will eventually be destroyed. Shooting at it will speed this process up, and yes, that includes friendly fire. Also, anytime you launch a rocket into the air with a balloon and zipline attached, you’re pretty much pinpointing your location to any nearby enemies. That can be bad…or good?
Ping Wheel Update
Yes, I’m excited about a Ping Wheel update, which seems kind of ridiculous, but it’s probably the most consistently used item in the game. Not every Legend gets used every match, and not every weapon gets used every game. But I’d bet a bag of Apex Coins the Ping Wheel gets used by you, your teammates, or someone on the other team, each and every round, making it one of the most widely used elements in the game.
With this latest update, new ping options are replacing some of the underused ones to strengthen and improve squad communications, with two additional pings being added for skydiving and knocked players. It’s a small update to a simple feature, but an important one that most Apex players rely on.
As with every new Apex Legends season, Arsenal will feature a unique Battle Pass complete with new Challenges and Rewards, including Legend and weapon skins, gun charms, banner frames, emotes, and more! But that’s not all, the team has a host of upcoming events, sales, and content releasing throughout the season.
Here are the full patch notes:
BALANCE UPDATES
Crate Rotation
- L-Star EMG enters the crate
- RE-45 returns to the floor
Weapon Crafting Rotation
- Alternator SMG enters the crafter
- Sentinel enters the crafter
- EVA-8 returns to the floor
- 30-30 Repeater returns to the floor
Gold Weapon Rotation
- Flatline, Triple Take, Spitfire, Mastiff, Volt
Loot Spawns
- Improved Vault Loot
- Increased chances of gold loot
- Added light mags to spawn pool
- Improved Cargo Bot Loot
- Removed small healing items, Mobile Respawn Beacon, White Armor, White Backpack
- Adjusted Large Healing and Heatshield spawns to allow for more desirable loot spawns
- Removed gold weapons from purple tier Cargo Bots but increased spawn chance in gold tier
WEAPONS
L-Star EMG [Crate]
- Added Disruptor Rounds: 60% damage increase against shields
- Base Damage Reduced to 16 (was 17)
- Projectiles now have passthrough: 60% damage retained
- Projectile growth increased
- Improved recoil pattern
- Removed barrel
- Ammo Stockpile: 324
- Reduced VFX brightness when hitting unarmored targets
30-30 Repeater
- Projectile size increased when fully charged
Triple Take
- Projectile size increased
- Improved hipfire spread
- Tightened bullet pattern when fully choked
- Ammo per shot reduced to 1 (was 3)
- Magazines sizes adjusted to match the new ammo costs
- Purple Mag: Increased to 10 shots (was 9)
R-99 SMG
- Removed 1 bullet from base and all magazines
- No Magazine reduced to 19 (was 20)
- White Magazine reduced to 21 (was 22)
- Blue Magazine reduced to 24 (was 25)
- Purple & Gold magazine reduced to 27 (was 28)
Charge Rifle
- Reduced shots per magazine to 3 (was 4)
- Reduced spawn rate
LEGENDS
Mirage
- Class changed from Skirmisher to Support
Ash
- Now gets slowed to weapon sprint speed instead of weapon walk speed when targeting with her tac
Assault Class
- Smart loot gains have been adjusted to reduce skipping an upgrade tier
- It will now be less likely to jump from White to Purple or Blue to Gold
- Optics are now given based on team rather than just Assault Legend who opens them
- Added special drop rate for Gold Optics
Skirmisher Class
- Care packages are now automatically pinged for the team on reveal.
- This includes empty Care Packages that have already been looted by another team
Support Class
- Support Bins will now guarantee at least one Battery in one of the Secret Compartment slots
- Support Bins will now award MRBs if your ally is dead, even if you don’t have their banner card.
- Legend Banners can now be crafted by ANY player who has a Support Class Legend in their Squad
MIXTAPE
- New Podium screens for Gun Run and Control
- Display a message in the Kill Feed if Leaver Penalties are disabled for the match due to an unfair match
- Control and Gun Run will indicate the team’s MVPs on the intro podium
- Control and TDM have updated loadouts (Crate Weapon changes and updates based on weapon meta/pick rates/kill rates)
- Gun Run and TDM now have XP Bonuses for Match Completion and Match Completion after Join in Progress
Control
- Map rotation: Barometer is out, Olympus: Hammond Labs is in
- Weapon Evo Change: No longer Evo weapons automatically when a new Rating Tier is reached. Players now reach the new tier and their weapon will Evo when the player holsters and then unholsters their weapon in any form (reload, weapon switch, manual holster, rides a zipline, performs a skydive, etc)
Gun Run
- Weapon Track update for new crate weapons.
- Added an additional XP bonus on the last weapon knife kill
Team Deathmatch
- Map rotation: Skulltown is out, Phase Runner is in
BUG FIXES
- Prowler: fixed ADS while crouching
- IMC Armories: fixed spectres taking too much damage from arc stars
- Fixed Duos showing NBR challenges instead of BR challenges
- Fixed comms wheel not being usable when a game is over
- Fixed players glitching inside of loot bins
- Fixed spectators not receiving audio queues for all types of launch pads/jump pads
- Fixed flickering of banners during victory and end of match screens
- Scoreboard is saved when a game is finished now, not post-podium sequence
- Lifetime Stats numbers no longer overlap for more than 7 digits
- Various lobby ultrawide UI improvements
LEGENDS
Ash:
- Steps are no longer louder if heirloom is equipped
- Fixed UI loop when crouch inspect is canceled early
- Ultimate will now persist for the entire duration even if Ash dies while it is active and while players are still traveling through it
- Bloodhound: White Ravens already in flight can no longer be scanned for free Tacticals and Ult charge
- Caustic: Fixed traps destroying when placed near closed doors that are then opened
Crypto:
- Drone can no longer be accessed after being knocked
- Drone no longer occasionally teleports behind a wall after you throw it
- Fixed drone sometimes spawning in the middle of the world when thrown into a wall
Loba:
- Fixed visibility issue with Black Market when Bangalore’s smoke is behind
- Amount head peeks over cover while crouching adjusted to match other Legends
- Mad Maggie: Improved reliability when hitting objects that the ball will damage or destroy
- Octane: Removed the double jump hint from the Launch Pad in cases where it would incorrectly show as an option (e.g. after a Pathfinder grapple)
- Rampart: multiple cover walls can no longer be placed in the same spot on a Trident
- Seer: Dummies in the firing range will now have the same footstep behavior as other players when moving inside of Seer’s Ultimate instead of behaving like other AI (Prowlers, Spiders)
- Valkyrie: Ultimate cooldown no longer set to 75% after being canceled while in Death Totem protection
Wraith:
- Fixed ultimate being usable while ziplining
- Mythic finisher “Whiplash” no longer pushes players outside of play area
MODES
Mixtape
- Fixed shields dropped by killed enemies being empty
- Fixed players leaving a match will no longer try to join the same match if its join-in-progress window is still active
Team Deathmatch
- Fixed grenades not dropping on player death
- Fixed Estates map image displaying the night variant of the map in the Lobby
Control
- Fixed Custom Match Observer issue where it was difficult to close the Map Screen if an Observer had it opened before players spawned in the match
- Fixed teammates death icon not appearing on the map if the map wasn’t open when the teammate died
- Fixed ordnance not auto-equipping to the ordnance slot if the player spawned out of bounds
- Fixed reserve ammo counter not displaying when switching weapons from Rampart or Vantage’s ultimate ability
QUALITY OF LIFE UPDATES
- Removed Auto-Taunt Prompt on Enemy Killed
- Can now ride ziplines while playing the banner pickup animation
- Bullet impact VFX on snow reduced
- LIVEAPI IMPROVEMENTS AND DOCUMENTATION
- This season will have some updates to the LiveAPI based on player and developer feedback. These include improvements to existing functionality and messages, new events, and extensive additions to documentation including some examples in Python.
- Support for Secure WebSockets (WSS) server connections
- Configurable SSL verification, to allow self-signed certificates
- Request validation through pre-shared key mechanism that can be specified through ‘cl_liveapi_requests_psk’
- Newly added game event broadcast delay that affects only real-time WebSocket connections, configurable through ‘cl_liveapi_ws_event_delay’
- Additional documentation and snippets added to events.proto file
- Includes sample values, code snippets in Python and expected API behavior
- Change for API request acknowledgements not behaving as intended
- Introduction of the RequestStatus message for more detailed explanations
- Fix for 4KB message payload truncation seen mostly when using JSON data format
- Fix for PlayerRevive event where the revived player field was incorrectly typed as a string instead of a Player message
- New WarpGateUsed and ObserverAnnotation events
- Downgrade of most uint64 fields to uint32 to ensure serialization as numbers and not strings in JSON
- All timestamp fields remain as uint64. Developers should take note when using JSON data format instead of Protobuf.