More than four years after its explosive launch rocked the battle royale market, apex legends Are you looking for another fresh start (no, that fresh start doesn’t include any updates on cross progression or 120 fps on consoles) when it’s the new season, Resurrectiondrops on August 8 at 1 p.m. ET.
In the new season, the Appendix the developers are undertaking a campaign to rework and overhaul existing items, starting with one of the oldest characters in the game, Revenant.
Season 17 added a well-received new character in Ballistic and brought some needed changes to maps like World’s Edge, plus a new firing range area for training. Unfortunately, it also added enough score changes to the ranked system that an unprecedented number of players were able to achieve high ranks by “snitching” or avoiding fights until late game, affecting game balance.
In response, there is a new ranked game system, too, giving the game’s most dedicated players better matches (hopefully) with scoring based on the hidden “MMR” score that tracks how good you really are. According to the developers, it will make climbing to a higher Master Rank slower, but it should make finding games faster and more rewarding.
As a battle royale shooter, apex legends corrals surviving players throughout the round with a ring of closure that deals damage to anyone caught in it, and ranked mode will add new adjustments to the damage and timing of its closure to discourage players from trying to heal their damage and avoid meeting other players. to place higher.
With an increasingly crowded market that includes other shooters such as surveillance 2 and the Obligations Giant, Season 17 was so financially disappointing that it earned a mention on EA’s quarterly earnings slide:
Accelerating the growth of the EA Sports FIFA franchise and the launch of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, partially offset by the underperformance of Apex Season 17
Still, according to executives on the earnings call (PDF), while Season 17’s performance “didn’t meet our expectations”, the game still has 18 million monthly active players and a retention rate of over 70 percent.
Said the president of EA Entertainment, Laura Miele:
At Apex, the way to think about it is when, when we have these services live, and I’ve established the areas of expansion of new audiences and addressable players, geographic expansion, and then monetization conversion mechanics that will evolve over time, we think and look at the Apex development cycle and honestly most live service cycles are short, medium and long term. So you’ll see some — we’ll see some tweaks and changes in Season 18. And we expect to see even bigger, impactful changes in Season 19 and Season 20 and beyond for the following year. So again, there’s a lot the team can do and what they have leverage on. And then there are some things, like modes or changes to mechanics, that just take more time to develop.
The game-as-a-service model means walking the tightrope of real-time evolution along with changing player expectations, growing the game’s audience with new players who don’t have years of experience and money invested, and also somehow do not change. too much things.
from reborn updated skills (along with his appearance) allows him to always see nearby enemies at low health as a passive ability to go with his existing faster crouch walk and improved wall climbing. Additionally, a new tactical ability, “Shadow Pounce”, allows you to close gaps in the blink of an eye. And to replace his old ult, which gave players temporary shadow clones to attack, the “Forged Shadows” ult now provides a shield that blocks damage and can regenerate, with refreshed shadows and tactical abilities each time you take down a player. another player while using it. .
This season, Respawn will also make Revenant available for free so players who haven’t unlocked him can test their skills, and completing a series of challenges will unlock him for free permanently.
Also releasing on August 8:
Broken Moon Mixtape
Mixtape crashes on Broken Moon, bringing fan-favorite Mixtape modes to new locations this season. Jump into the Gun Run and Team Deathmatch at The Core or play Control at the Production Yard. Legends can show their skill as the darkness approaches.
Death Dynasty Collection Event
Embody the essence of death with the Death Dynasty Collection event. During the event, players get double XP in Battle Royale from August 8-15 and Mixtape from August 15-22. Legends who unlock all 24 cosmetics will automatically be rewarded with Revenant’s new “Death Grip” relic.
Charge Rifle Upgrade
The Charge Rifle has been redesigned for out-of-the-box use in Apex games. The infamous weapon no longer fires a sustained beam. Newly equipped with an Extended Sniper Mag accessory slot and with a number of changes to its firing mechanisms, Legends familiar with the anti-Titan model available during Frontier Wars should feel right at home.
Finally, the lead up to this season brought with it a very titan fall 2-The story mission, Kill Code, which I didn’t enjoy based on its jumping puzzle structure, but presented an interesting teaser for players who have been longing for something more with a single player flavor, especially in light of a single supposedly cancelled. player spin-off and there is no sign of a new Titanfall game waiting in the wings (although Miele mentioned it on the earnings call, saying, “Remember, Appendix is set to the Titanfall world. There is a lot of demand and interest in this universe.”) The quest and story also added elements to the main game that dropped higher level items to help the characters on their quest by visiting particular locations on the map. Ideally, if Respawn adds more integrations, they’ll be more like this one, as it was added to the game without sending teams and teammates on a longer wild goose chase like some previous activations in the game.
On this week’s earnings call, EA executives said the game would “introduce new game modes to a number of markets,” and hopefully that means more than just releasing a new mobile title to replace the one that was unceremoniously cancelled. or add more. elements and characters to increase the appeal internationally.
the tradition of apex legends It’s always been a bit of a sleeping giant, and leaning into that with gameplay experiences could help it continue to stand out from the crowd.
