The popular live service battle royale title Apex Legends is getting set to enter season number 18 titled Resurrection, which will break new ground for Respawn in the game’s evolution when it goes live on August 8, 2023.
It won’t be adding a new legend or weapon, it won’t be adding a new map, instead it’ll be giving an old legend an entirely new look and kit, and an old gun a much needed update, with a new and re-worked Revenant and Charge Rifle.
Revenant was added to Apex Legends in Season 4, and his kit since then has included a passive that made his crouch speed faster and could both climb vertically faster and farther than any legend.
His tactical was a silencer of sorts, that if enemy legends got to close to would not only damage them slightly but ‘silence’ or disable their abilities for a short time.
Finally his ultimate was that he could conjure a totem which gave him and his teammates access to a shadow version of themselves where you lost HP but would be summoned back to the totem if you took too much damage, with your shields fully untouched.
His passive ability is the only one that’s staying relatively the same, though it’s in fact been greatly improved.
His passive is now titled Assassin’s Instinct, and it still lets him climb and crawl faster, though he now climbs farther than before and can climb horizontally as well as vertically.
Revenant’s old silencing tactical ability is gone and in its place is now Shadow Pounce, which is a great leap that Revenant can now perform, that can even be charged up for players to travel further distances.
Finally his ultimate ability does away with the totem and replaces it with Forged Shadows, which when activated will create shadows that protect Revenant from damage, and will be refreshed with each knockdown you get while in that state.
A knockdown will also refresh your tactical, making the two abilities quite apt for anyone who prefers and aggressive style of play.
When it comes to the Charge Rifle, as one of the more icon weapons in the game, it is still not exactly the most popular sniper. The long beam it would fire could do plenty of damage, but with a small and unforgiving margin of error.
Its reload animation and mag are both long and short respectively and does more to give away your position than anything. Beginning with Season 18 however, the Charge Rifle’s long beam is no more.
Instead it’ll fire an energy blast in a concentrated shot, that has a long arc suitable for lining up shots like any other sniper in the game. You can even charge up this shot for distance, and the longer it has to travel, the more damage it’ll do.
You’ll also for the first time be able to fit an extended mag on the Charge Rifle, making it a much more viable sniper to pick up.
Though it likely won’t have the same effect as hearing a Kraber shot fly across the map with it’s chilling blast that makes everyone turn to hope they aren’t about to be downed, this new Charge Rifle could move up the ladder in the Apex Legends weapon’s meta.
That’s said without knowing how more or less powerful each shot will be or has the potential to be, and it’s the potential part of that which is exciting to consider.
Other new details in Season 18 come in the form of new maps based off the latest Broken Moon battle royale map will be added to Mixtape, the new permanent play mode that cycles through Team Deathmatch, Gun Run and Control.
Every other map is represented in the Mixtape, so it’s about time Broken Moon was added to the list. And on top of the changes already made to Ranked play, the Dive Trails that players in Diamond or higher rankings would be granted have been done away with.
Respawn is finally responding to the fact that if you appeared in a match with a Predator Dive Trail, you’d either be jumped and overwhelmingly picked on by five or more teams at a time who all want to ‘get the Pred’ as it were, or you’d be left alone so much you’re spending half the match just looking for signs of life.
Neither experience is what high-ranking players want just for being a high-ranking player, so now you’ll be awarded an Epic level Banner Frame instead.
So even if players see your Predator badges as the match starts when that player appears a part of the champion squad, other players won’t be able to tell who they’re launching beside so automatically.
There are likely more changes coming that’ll be revealed in the patch notes, but those are all the main changes to be aware of as we nudge closer to Season 18 which will launch next week on August 8, 2023.
The patch notes will arrive a day before, on August 7, 2023.
Source – [Respawn]
