Respawn’s flagship celebrates its fifth anniversary! To mark the anniversary, the developer is bringing an upgrade system to the game, which will revise the abilities of each individual legend and thus provide a completely new gaming experience
The 20th season of EA’s battle royale shooter Apex Legends begins on February 13th with “Breakout”. To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the developers have decided to give the game a completely new look.
Above all the smaller changes here and there, the so-called legend upgrades are enthroned, which will not only have a major impact on the gameplay of the individual legends, but also have the potential to completely shake up the meta as we know it at the moment.
One legend – numerous possibilities
As the name suggests, the legend upgrades are ways of equipping and improving your character with various abilities. And so you can customize them even more according to your (game) preferences
The entire system is simple. In each match, the player starts with the legend of his choice at level 1, which is equivalent to a white EVO shield. This EVO shield is then leveled up over the course of the game. Points are awarded for damage, knocks, kills, interaction with class perks, etc. At a certain threshold value, the legend reaches the second level, the blue EVO shield. In the course of this, the player can choose between two different upgrade paths for the first time:
A concrete example: Mad Maggie can choose between two drills with a shorter range and less penetrating power or a stronger drill with a longer range and more penetrating power during the first upgrade. Once selected, this replaces the standard version of the Tactical for the rest of the game.
The same process is repeated as soon as the player has reached enough points for level 3 (purple) of the EVO. Once again, there are two upgrade options to choose from. There are no more upgrades at the last level of the shield, which is displayed in red as usual. This means that a total of four different upgrade combinations are possible for each legend. Once an upgrade has been selected, it cannot be reversed and replaced by its counterpart.
At the same time, this means that there will be no more shields to be found on the ground at the start of the new season! Since the level of the respective player is directly linked to the core of his EVO shield, the maximum number of EVO shield cores that can be found and equipped by other players (e.g. in death boxes) is now limited.
In contrast to the previous “Shield Swap”, you do not receive the entire shield of the fallen opponent, but only the one corresponding to your own level. If a player is level 2 (blue) and swaps his core with a level 3 (purple) core, his shield is only replenished by three bars. The excess fourth bar of the purple shield is – similar to a Conduit Tactical – only temporarily available and cannot be refilled with cells and batteries if the player receives damage.
More content for the new season
In addition to the arguably meta-changing introduction of the upgrade system, there is also a new approach to ranked play for Breakout again. At the start of the new season all players will be set to 1 Ranked Points so that everyone starts at the same level.
The matchmaking itself is based on exactly this RP. This means that there will no longer be any matchmaking running in the background that cannot be seen and it will be fairer accordingly. RP is still earned through a combination of ranking and bonus points for kills, assists, etc.
In addition, from Breakout there will no longer be any promotional games, but splits will be reintroduced. In addition, the level limit for ranked play will be lowered again from 50 to 20.
A new mixtape map, the Thunderdome, is also being added to the game. A small, action-promising map on which all common game modes such as Gun Run, Team Deathmatch and Control can be played
Straight Shot is therefore more or less a Blitz version of Ranked mode. Only without much looting, less downtime and action throughout. The new upgrade system is included as in the normal game
