LEGACY UPDATE PATCH NOTES

DEVSTREAM

Take a deep dive with the devs into the Legacy update. We’re going beyond Battle Royale with Arenas, introducing a new Legend (Valkyrie), as well as new Arenas maps, an Olympus map update, and much more. Click the video down below to watch.

NEW FOR APEX LEGENDS: LEGACY

ARENAS

The Games are going underground with the introduction of a new permanent mode: Arenas. Fully reassembled and unimpressed with the glitz and glamor of the Apex Games, former Apex Predator Ash is taking the competition back to its roots. A purer form of combat.

The rules are simple: 3-versus-3. Eliminate your enemies to win the round. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You win, or you die.

Arenas features a new set of custom maps, tailor-made for close-quarters combat (with more to come in the future). Squads start each round in a spawn room, where they can get weapons, gear, and abilities, and adjust their loadout as their strategy changes. The first team to win three rounds with at least a two-point lead will be crowned the victor—unless they battle to a four-four tie. Then they’ll have the honor of participating in Ash’s favorite part of the game: Sudden Death.

For more on Arenas, check out the blog for a full deep dive into the new mode.

PARTY CRASHER

Short version, Mirage took the voyage on a joyride and it didn’t go as planned.

Party Crasher is one of two exciting custom arenas where you’ll be able to show off your skills. This arena takes place in a ritzy, downtown plaza where players can choose to engage on the crashed Mirage Voyage, or the opulent two story buildings that make up the downtown. Stay vigilante, as this map hosts a variety of engagement distances—both close quarters and long distance.

PHASE RUNNER

The Phase Runner on Olympus is unique, but it wasn’t the first of its kind.

Phase Runner is the second of our custom arenas, and our largest. You’ll fight in a hidden, experimental zone at the peak of a mountain where a prototype phase runner lays for use. This map gives you a lot of space to maneuver, so be sure to be on the lookout for those who prefer to be patient and take you out from afar. Sound tactics and clear communication are what you’ll need to come out on top as you fight through the construction site or near the phase runner exit.

In addition to the two new maps, other areas from our three BR maps will be thrown into a bi-weekly rotation, giving you five maps total for Arenas. At the start you’ll get Artillery from Kings Canyon, Thermal Station from World’s Edge, and Golden Gardens from Olympus.

VALKYRIE

Kairi Imahara, the daughter of Apex Predator Viper, salvaged the remains of her father's Northstar Titan years after his death. With Rampart's help, she fashioned it into a sleek new jetpack that honors her family’s legacy. Now, she’s entered the Games under the name VALKYRIE.

Passive: VTOL Jets

Use your jetpack to reposition or reach high places. You have limited fuel and cannot use weapons while flying.

Tactical: Missile Swarm

Fire a swarm of mini-rockets which damage and disorient the enemy.

Ultimate: Skyward dive

Take to the skies to reposition a long distance across the map. Your squadmates can join in.

Class: Recon

Scanning Survey Beacons reveals the next circle’s location.

BOCEK

The new Bocek (pronounced bow-check) compound bow is a precision marksman weapon that rewards a skilled and confident hand. Holding down fire will draw the bow over a short time, increasing the power of the shot, with maximum power giving optimal damage and projectile speed. Repeatedly firing the Bocek right as it reaches max power provides the best sustained damage. 

The Bocek uses a new ammo type, Arrows, which are unique to this weapon. Arrows are more rare on the battlefield, but fired arrows will stick into surfaces and remain in the world for players to pick back up and reuse. The 1x hcog classic, 1x holosight, 2x hcog, 1x-2x variable, and 3x hcog optics can all be equipped. The Bocek can also be further modified with the two new hop-ups entering the game, Shatter Caps and Deadeye’s Tempo; it can even equip both hop-ups simultaneously!

OLYMPUS - THE LOST FLEET UPDATE

A fleet of mysterious ships have made their way to Olympus and brought with them an otherworldly, parasitic plant that has begun to take root along the surface. The lead ship, The Icarus, has docked with the city and changed the landscape for good. Fight through the claustrophobic halls of the ghost ship, search corpses for a mysterious key card, and walk away as the last squad standing.

Read our latest map update blog to get a detailed look at what’s changed on Olympus.

To allow everyone to see the latest map update, Olympus will be the only map in rotation for the first week of the new season.

STARTER KIT AND LOOT CHANGES

• Players will now start a match with a “Starter Kit” consisting of a Level 1 EVO Shield, Helmet, and Knockdown Shield, plus two Shield Cells and Syringes each.
• We’ve removed Level 1 Helmets and Knockdown Shields from the loot pool.
• Spawn chances for Level 1 EVO Shields in the loot pool have been significantly reduced.
• Along with the lowered or removed spawn chances for these items, we’ve rebalanced the loot pool such that higher-level versions of these items will appear nearly the same as they do now, but other item types will appear more often (weapons, ordinance, health, ammo, etc.)

Dev note

We've wanted to take a crack at improving the loot game for a while, with our design goals being to make picking up loot feel more impactful to the game, and to thin out our loot a bit in general, since we're always adding new items to the pool. The recent Locked & Loaded takeover mode helped us field-test some of the changes we're looking to make moving forward: certain pieces of loot, and low-tier loot types specifically, are being put on notice.

We're removing Level 1 Helmets and Knockdown Shields from the ground loot because these seemed like the least exciting, least meaningful equipment pickups we had. Their power is practically invisible, so they don't really feel like a character improvement in the way that things like, say, a Backpack feels (getting those extra slots feels SO chunky!).

We're keeping Level 1 EVO Shields in the loot pool (albeit at a lower spawn chance) in addition to adding them to your starter kit because having them sprinkled around is still important for "shield-swapping" shenanigans.

Finally, granting these pieces of gear from the start of the game is also intended to improve the "hot drop" situation: having more health, some headshot damage reduction, and a little knockdown protection can help give players some more time to react to a chaotic hot drop than before.

Be on the lookout for more loot changes in the future! This will be an ongoing project.

EMOTES

 

Introducing Emotes! Every Legend will have one emote unlocked at launch and additional emotes can be obtained through Apex packs or by crafting them. Equip your emotes to the emote wheel and flex away! It’s great fun to show off to your squadmates in the starting room of Arenas, and of course you have to use them on the Winner’s podium.

Now, since emotes kick your camera back to a third-person view, we know some folks are already thinking about corner peeking. Competitive integrity is still paramount, so enemies that your character couldn’t see in first-person view will not be shown while you are in third person.

This video shows the “Anti-Peek” feature working on the purple Dummie behind the rock. Without it, Pathfinder would be able to use the 3rd person camera to gain knowledge that he shouldn’t have. All emotes have Anti-Peek enabled and there is no way to disable it.

BATTLE PASS

Unlock the premium Legacy Battle Pass and level it up to unlock new skins like Rampart’s Crafty Kitsune at Premium Level 25 and Wraith’s Demon’s Whisper at Premium Level 50.

LEGEND UPDATES

LOW PROFILE CHARACTERS

• Low profile no longer exists! This trait has been removed from Wraith, Lifeline, and Wattson.

Dev Note

After our successful experiment with Wraith's hitboxes, we are now confident that we can solve balance issues between smaller and larger Legends through changes to their kits and hitboxes. It is finally time for Low Profile to go the way of the dodo. (Sorry dodos.)

LIFELINE

• Combat Revive: No longer deploys a shield. Can now revive two players at the same time. Can now cancel active revives in progress to allow your teammate to defend themselves with their knockdown shield.
• D.O.C. Heal Drone: Heal rate increased from 5hp per second to 8hp per second. Deployment time before healing begins reduced by roughly 33%.
• Care Package: Cooldown reduced from 6 minutes to 5 minutes. Now guarantees an upgrade (if possible) in three categories: Body Shield, Other Equipment (Helmet, Backpack, and Knockdown Shield), and Weapon Attachment, based on your team’s current gear when the Package arrives.

Dev Note

Lifeline’s kit was not in a particularly healthy place. The Passive shield was extremely strong to the point of frustration, while her Tactical and Ultimate seemed like they were becoming more and more obsolete. These changes are aimed to redistribute this big power differential between all of her abilities, making D.O.C. and Care Package more powerful and effective, while tamping down on the highly binary and situational Combat Revive.

OCTANE

• Stim: Reduced cooldown between stims from 4s to 1s. Increased health cost from 12hp to 20hp.
• Increased bullet spread while in the air and shooting from the low Launch Pad trajectory.

Dev Note

Octane continues to perform really well after the latest changes. Too well? We still love the frequency of the Jump Pad, but we’d like to make using Stim something Octane thinks about doing at the right time, instead of always slamming it by default.

LOBA

• Burglar's Best Friend: Can now run and slide at full speed while aiming the bracelet and while the bracelet is in the air. Loba will no longer be slowed after translocating.
• Fixed a lot of bugs that caused bracelet tosses to fail.

Black Market Boutique: Increased cooldown from 90s to 120s.

HORIZON

• Gravity Lift: Reduced lift speed by 30%. Reduced side-to-side acceleration. Limited the time you can sit at the top of Gravity Lift to 2 seconds. Increased cooldown from 15s to 20s.
• Horizon’s abilities will now get zapped by Wattson pylons.

Dev Note

Horizon is powerful and popular, but that's not why we're making these changes. We believe that mistakes in Apex Legends should be punishable, and when Horizon could just get herself out of bad positioning while popping a whole battery, this just wasn't true. These changes have two goals: 1) make it much more possible for enemies to shoot Horizon as she sits in her gravity lift and 2) make gravity lift less of an impromptu sniper tower.

FUSE

• Knuckle Cluster: Fuse now has two stacks of Knuckle Cluster. Reduced cooldown from 25s to 20s.

Dev Note

More help is coming, but we want to be very careful how we buff him so that he doesn't just become the Legend that kills you with his abilities.

BANGALORE

• Smoke Launcher: Thickened Bangalore’s smoke. 

Dev Note

Last patch we optimized Bangalore’s smoke particles and inadvertently thinned them out. This aims to get her back to the original visuals while keeping the optimizations.

BLOODHOUND

• No longer receives assists from Eye of the Allfather.

Dev Note

Bloodhound's scan is strong, but the goal of this change in particular is to reconsider assists and their implications for Ranked Points. There's enough intrinsic value in sonar scans, and it's a slippery slope to consider crediting assists for other non-damaging abilities. Crypto will remain an exception. The active nature of Crypto's drone scan is notably different from the passive option with Bloodhound. This should encourage Bloodhound players to act on the information they get from the scan, to eliminate instances where they might try to snag a quick assist without committing to a fight in the same way Crypto has to.

CRYPTO

• Crypto's drone can now scan and open care packages.
• Can no longer use his drone to "hijack" a respawn beacon that's already in use.

WEAPONS UPDATES

MARKSMAN WEAPON CATEGORY

The G7 Scout and the 30-30 are currently in the Assault Rifle weapons category, but they are a bit strange in that category due to their firing style and some of their handling values. Similarly, the Triple Take felt a little out of place in the Sniper category.

With the introduction of the Bocek bow, we felt it was a good time to introduce a new weapons category, Marksman Weapons, which will include the G7, 30-30, Triple Take, and Bocek. Weapons in this category are precision weapons that are most effective up to medium-long range, and are the sort of in-betweens of Assault Rifles and Snipers. This allows us to begin moving the settings of these weapons towards more consistent value for the class, and make the settings of ARs and Snipers more consistent with less outliers.

For starters, we are increasing the movement speed while aiming down sights for marksman weapons; They were at sniper speeds, and will now be between sniper and AR speeds. Additionally, we have done some targeted normalization of hipfire spread amounts.

SUPPLY DROP ROTATION

This season, we’re taking the Peacekeeper out of the supply drop and putting the Triple Take in its place. Of course, with any supply drop change, these weapons will have their stats updated. See how each weapon changes down below.

Crate Weapon Drop Rates:
Since we are exchanging a shotgun with a marksman weapon, now was a good time to rebalance the drop rates of crate weapons. The Kraber will spawn less often in the early game and more often in the mid game to better accommodate its power. The Triple Take will be the most common early game crate weapon, with the Prowler being the most prominent late game crate weapon.

FULLY KITTED ROTATION

• Added: Wingman, Bocek, R99, Hemlock, and Sentinel
• Removed: R301, 30-30 Repeater, Mozambique, Longbow DMR, and Spitfire

HOP UPS

• Shatter Caps - Fire select to toggle between standard mode and shatter mode. In shatter mode, rounds split into a blast pattern on firing. This hop up will be equipable to the 30-30 Repeater and the Bocek.  
• Deadeye’s Tempo - Firing at the perfect moment increases fire rate. This can currently be attached to the Sentinel and the Bocek. 
• To make room, the Hammerpoint and Skullpiercer hop ups are being vaulted for now, and won’t be available.

ASSAULT RIFLES

• Reducing the headshot multiplier for all assault rifles from 2.0 to 1.75

Dev Note

This was already the case for the Hemlok, so the affected guns are the R301, Flatline, and Havoc.

PEACEKEEPER

• It comes with the Precision Choke by default, which can be toggled off
• Pellet damage reduced from 10 to 9
• Rechamber time increased from 0.9 seconds to 1.1 seconds
• Reload times increased (regular from 2.45 to 2.5, empty from 3.35 to 3.5)
• Pellet spread increased in general, and spread when charged increased for all charge levels (from 0.65/0.45/0.2 to 0.85/0.65/0.35)
• Quickly loses charge after leaving ADS

Dev Note

Since the Peacekeeper is coming out of the crate, we are bringing many of the stats back in line with their previous values. We are also reducing its damage potential and bringing in the effective range a bit since the Precision Choke is always available now.

TRIPLE TAKE

• As a crate weapon, it will come with a 9 ammo clip and 63 reserve ammo
• Fire rate increased from 1.2 to 1.3
• Time to full charge reduced from 1.1 seconds to 1 second
• Retains charge briefly after leaving ADS
• Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons -- faster than snipers, slower than ARs
• Increased spread while airborne and aiming down sights

HAVOC

• Increased recoil controllability early in the pattern

Dev Note 

This should help make up for the reduced headshot multiplier and make it a bit more usable in mid-range fights.

SPITFIRE

• Reduced recoil controllability early in the pattern

Dev Note
The Spitfire is too strong at the moment, boasting good damage output with low recoil. Making it a bit harder to control early in the pattern should give more time for opponents to fight against it. That said, we’re prepared to make more changes to the Spitfire if it remains too powerful.

30-30 REPEATER

• Increased leg damage multiplier from 0.75 to 0.85
• Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons -- faster than snipers, slower than ARs

Dev Note

The 30-30 could use some love, so we’re bringing up the amount of leg damage it does.  This should make it a bit more consistent without raising its high “best case” damage potential.

G7 SCOUT

• Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons -- faster than snipers, slower than ARs
• Increased hipfire spread size (reduced accuracy) to be more in line with other marksman weapons

Dev Note

The 30-30 Repeater and the Bocek Compound Bow have more accurate hipfire than the baseline marksman weapon values, so the G7 Scout will be less accurate in hipfire than these other weapons.

LONGBOW

• Increased headshot multiplier from 2.0 to 2.15

WINGMAN

• Increased headshot multiplier from 2.0 to 2.15

Dev Note

As we’ve done before when the Skullpiercer is out of the loot pool, we’re giving the Longbow and Wingman a compensatory buff.

MOZAMBIQUE

• Increased magazine capacity from 4 to 6
• Moved the lower 2 pellets inward in the blast pattern

Dev Note 

This brings up the baseline power level so “only” finding a Mozambique early in the match gives you more of a fighting chance, and makes up for the removal of Hammerpoints.

P2020

• Increased bullet damage from 15 to 18
• Lowered fire rate from 8.5 to 6.25

Dev Note

Similar to the Mozambique, we want to bring up the P2020’s baseline power level a bit. Most players couldn’t take advantage of the fast fire rate, so bringing that down while increasing the damage should help players win more early fights with the P2020.

ARC STARS

• Aim and movement slow removed from the initial stick.

Dev Note

Sticking someone should feel rewarding, considering it's a rare occurrence that's difficult to pull off. While an argument can be made that getting stuck should be a personal death sentence, the inability to at least relocate and spare teammates from the follow-up explosion makes it hard to counter against a coordinated team. This change should help mitigate that without stripping away the satisfaction of hitting a nice stick.

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Badges are now sorted by categories and can be filtered by “all” or “unlocked only”. This suggestion came directly from players. Thank you! It’s so much better!

• When looting death boxes, players can now see health bars for everyone on the team.

• Challenges can now be “favorited” by going into the challenges menu and right clicking a challenge. That Challenge will then be added to a new favorites tab that will appear in the lobby and in the match’s map screen.

• Pressing and Holding F2 while in-game will bring up the ability description page for your character. This is only available on PC.
• Players can now request better equipment by going into their inventory and pinging a piece of equipment.
• Your first Challenge Reroll of the day is now free.
• Rerolling your challenges will allow you to choose from either BR-focused challenges or Arenas-focused ones.
• Holo Sprays, Quips, and Emotes, can be favorited. These will be used whenever the player is prompted to do a random emote.
• Club Invites v2: You can now include what you want to play when you send your clubmates a party invite via the Club tab. Select as many club mates as you want to send the invite to at once via the member list.
• Ranked: Fixed edge cases where an abandon penalty would be incorrectly applied due to server errors.
• Flight path adjustments: Removing edge dropship flight paths to prevent matches where large portions of the map receive little to no traffic. These screenshots show a before/after comparison of possible flight paths on Kings Canyon.

RING UPDATE

We're continuing work from the Fight Night update to improve match pacing towards the end of the game. We're slowing down the closing speed of the late game Rings to allow you more time to fight and maneuver your way into the Ring. We're also reducing the "waiting" time before Rings 4 and 6 start to close.

• Ring 4 pre-shrink time reduced from 2:00 to 1:45
• Ring 4 shrink speed reduced from 33 second close time to 40 seconds
• Ring 5 shrink speed reduced from 20 second close time to 40 seconds
• Ring 6 pre-shrink time reduced from 1:30 to 1:00
• Ring 6 shrink speed reduced from 1:40 close time to 2:00

BUG FIXES

Bloodhound

• Fixed an issue with the Tactical UI not showing while in Bloodhound’s Ultimate.

Pathfinder

• Gas Traps and Jump Pads will no longer float into the sky when placed next to a zipline.

Wraith

• Slight wall bumps no longer inadvertently cancel Wraith’s tactical.

Mirage

• Decoys no longer die after a tick of thermite damage.

Octane

• Ordinances will no longer get stuck and disappear when being bounced off of Jump Pads.
• Death Totems will no longer bounce when a Jump Pad is placed under it.
• Players will no longer have weapons drawn if they are knocked as they enter the Fight Night ring via a Jump Pad.
• Updated Octane’s Helicopter emote to correctly remove his leg for which he is using it to do said helicoptering.

Wattson

• Fixed the “Extend” prompt for Watson’s fences not appearing in certain situations.
• Haute Drop skin will no longer block view when reloading the Sentinel.

Loba

• Fixed more areas where Loba’s Bracelet fails.
• Red Handed skin on consoles will now properly animate.

Rampart

• Mobile Respawn Beacon now has proper collision with Amped Cover.
• Jumping on and off a damaged Shiela will no longer transfer the flame effect to your weapon.

Horizon

• Players will no longer have weapons drawn if they are knocked as they enter the fight night ring via a Gravity Lift.
• 1x holo sight will no longer block view when using certain skins.
• Fixed an issue with NEWT not getting refunded if it immediately dies due to a bad spot.

Fuse

• 1x holo sight will no longer block view when using certain skins.

Flatline

• Part of the iron sight was being displayed over the whole weapon.

Prowler

• Supply Drop Prowler can now toggle fire modes.

Sentinel

• Moved tool tips to not overlap hop up icons.
• Fixed a graphical issue when swapping to Sentinel.

Misc.

• Fixed a menu issue with the advanced look options being hidden.
• Survey beacons will now appear on the map when teammates are respawned.