Celebrate 6 Years of Apex
Another legendary year down. This year we celebrate the 6th anniversary of Apex Legends. How are we celebrating you ask? We’re back with an anniversary event like no other. This year, we have a free community-made reward tracker, a first of its kind Mythic R-301, Mythic Mayhem Royale, and more. COMMUNITY-MADE REWARD TRACKER Some of your favorite community artists and creators have joined forces to bring you a fresh and brand new community-made reward tracker to help commemorate our anniversary. Complete daily challenges and earn points to unlock free items like Legend skins, Art Trackers, Crafting Metals, an Anniversary Event pack, stickers and more. A huge and special shout out to all of the amazing artists and creators who squadded up to make this anniversary tracker happen! MYTHIC MAYHEM ROYALE Get ready for some Mythic Mayhem Royale! The new Mythic R-301 is coming to Pubs in this new takeover. Keep an eye out for new supply drops marked with Rampart's signature and hologram to receive a fully kitted R-301 with a distinct hop-up providing a unique buff during the event. In addition to Mythic Mayhem Royale, get ready to hunt down some Respawn Tokens while playing Trios and Duos (during the 3rd week of the event only). Loot a respawn token and get a second chance at victory! MYTHIC R-301 AND HEIRLOOM SHARDS Join the party and unleash destruction as you unlock 36 Anniversary Event items, with every item being Legendary or above, including a set of Heirloom Shards, Legend skins, weapon skins, and the Mythic R-301! Some Anniversary Event items this year may look familiar as we included a number of previous anniversary skins. However, if players already own the previous anniversary skins, they will automatically progress through the milestone rewards. Inspired by Wraith’s affinity with the void, mirroring her volatile nature and a dimension that transcends time and space - the first of its kind Mythic R-301 has entered the party. The Mythic R-301 is absolutely loaded. Use Exotic Shards to evolve it through four bold cosmetic upgrades. These upgrades include elevated animations, knock effects, and more. Players who obtain Void Disruption, the new Mythic R-301 weapon skin, during the Anniversary Event will automatically receive the matching Void Disruption ordnance skin. Afterwards, players will be able to unlock the Void Disruption ordnance skin via currency. STORE TAB Today through March 4th, you can snag skins from previous anniversary stores dating all the way back to Apex’s 2nd anniversary! Bundles with skins such as Lunar Elegance, Air Orchid, and Hype Beast will all be available. Play Apex Legends™ for free* now on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch™, and PC via the EA app, Epic, and Steam. Follow Apex Legends™ on X, Instagram, TikTok, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out our forums. Sign up for our newsletter today to receive the latest Apex Legends™ news, updates, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive offers, and more (including other EA news, products, events, and promotions) by email. This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible. For more information, please refer to EA’s Online Service Updates at https://www.ea.com/service-updates. *Applicable platform account and platform subscription (sold separately) may be required. A persistent internet connection and EA account required. Age restrictions apply. Includes in-game purchases. †Not available in all territories.Apex Legends™: Takeover Patch Notes
OVERVIEW There’s no better way to kick off year seven of Apex Legends than upping the heat of battle. Two heavy hitters that have been in the background a bit too long make their way center stage with updates worthy of Apex Predators, and revamped perks raise up the rest of the Assault Class. No weapon is a bad weapon with buffs across the board for every piece that you can get your hands on. This new meta is cooking and it’s safe to say that this anniversary season flips the season of Support to one of aggression. Coupled with some strong updates for Armor and Helmets, greater access to weapons with the new Arsenals, and reduced visual clutter and time-to-kill has never been faster. It’s a whole new Outlands—be ready to fight. LEGEND BUFFS Leading the charge this season are two Assault Legends who’ve been flying under the radar and are ready to explode: Ash and Ballistic. ASH Ash sees a number of improvements this season to her Arc Snare and Phase Breach to make them more effective and reliable. Her snare change lets her snag targets against the strong edge of the tether more often. Her Ult goes farther, travels faster, and endpoint detection has improved to make the targeting stickier and less prone to accidental bad snapping. The big change for Ash is her new passive: Predator's Pursuit. This grants her an omnidirectional short-range dash—enabling her to close the gap on a tethered target or evade swiftly in a close-quarters skirmish. With these changes, Ash is set to become the Apex Predator she was always meant to be. BALLISTIC Ballistic sees some of his favorite upgrades, the extra charge and sling levelling, integrated into his base kit, giving him more utility and versatility in the early game. A new Level 3 upgrade allows him to double his Whistler charges, opening up his utility and crowd control potential immensely. Tempest, his Ult, now also grants a speed bonus—making him a frightening force when he and his team bare down on you. But the big guns? Ballistic's sling can now carry crate weapons, which can spool with infinite ammo when Tempest is active. In Takeover, Ballistic may very well relive his glory days. ASSAULT CLASS PERKS Assault Legends are walking arsenals: forged in combat and always ready for a fight. Their abilities grant them incredible combat utility that helps disrupt enemies, threaten their positions, or give them openings to strike. These Legends are enhanced with perks that let them worry less about their weapon economy, bring more explosive power to the table, and give them the combat edge to capitalize on one of core moments in any combat encounter—the shield break. Combat Reserve Carry extra ammo per ammo stack Have two new grenade-only slots in inventory Retain access to Red Extended Supply Bins Stowed Reload: stowed weapons automatically reload after 2s Battle Surge: breaking an enemy’s shields grants a speed burst, fast reloads, and highlights the target enemy for 4s WEAPON BUFFS, HELMETS AND ARMOR Over the years, Apex has evolved in so many ways to provide players with more agency and deeper options for how to play, survive, and express their skill. Through that evolution, the benchmark damage for our weapons has stayed stable, but has grown stale. We want to make sure the nuanced flow of combat remains tight and weapons are lethal in order to provide exciting gameplay options. Battle Royales are all about strategy and timing. These are the mechanisms to success, but strategy goes right out the window if encounters are taking too long to resolve and you're dealing with your 3rd, 4th, or even 5th party. This latest suite of changes is designed to keep you in the drivers seat by providing the tools to resolve conflicts faster, getting you back to if the 3rd party is coming and not when. In addition to sweeping weapon buffs, we have taken a look at the defensive side of loot in Apex with some hefty streamlining. Low tier Helmets (white, blue, and purple) have been removed, and rare high value Helmets that provide meaningful gameplay perks have been added in their place. As for Armor, you will no longer level into red tier (125 shields) at Level 4 but will instead be capped at Level 3 (100 shields). However, red shields will still be available in the form of the new Mythic Armor Upgrade Helmet. MUZZLE FLASH Visual clutter in gunfights is no joke. In an attempt to combat this, we’ve reduced the effects and particles you see when you fire your weapon. We believe this update balances increased visual clarity while still selling the impact and fantasy of firing our weapons. All 1P weapons muzzle flashes have been updated 95% less visual noise over the line of sight (sparks, smoke, glows etc) Noise/visuals kept below line of sight Reduced size of muzzle flashes Optimized particle count Cleaned noise from shells ejects Cleaned lingering elements (smoke, sparks, etc) Light toned down to avoid flickering on weapons and environment models PATCH NOTES BALANCE UPDATES Care Package R-99 returns to the floor (balance details below) Peacekeeper enters the Care Package (balance details below) Gold Weapon Rotation Alternator, R-99, Wingman, 30-30 Repeater, Rampage LMG EVO Max level achievable by earning EVO is now Level 3 (Purple Armor) Red Armor no longer earnable through leveling EVO required to reach Level 3 increased to 1700 (was 1350) Dev Note: Red armor allowed for a much wider health disparity in the mid to late game which reinforced activities like farming damage on the outskirts and avoiding encounters to collect resources. By lowering the total Armor available to these actions and the levels required to earn them, you can now get end-game ready more easily and focus on what matters most—the fight. Accelerated Weapons Assists with an Accelerated Weapon equipped will no longer grant the extra 30% ult charge in Mixtape Modes GAMEPLAY UPDATES NEW Arsenals These stations provide players with easy and deterministic access to weapons and ammo of their choice. Stations across all POI's on every map with fixed locations Ammo type provided randomizes each match Equipped with an enhancing terminal that upgrades one weapon matching the ammo type per Arsenal Enhancing grants an upgraded attachment and provides an optic if one is missing Healing Cells now take 2.5s to complete (was 3s) Syringes now take 4s (was 5s) Cells & Syringes now stack up to 6 Players now start with 4 Cells and 4 Syringes (was 2 each) Battery and Medkit spawn rates have been slightly increased Dev Note: Players will undoubtedly need to continue popping meds whenever they can with lowered max health, a universal gold helmet perk, and a ton of weapon buffs. We’ve decided to shave down some of those sharp edges to make healing a little easier across the board. Helmets White, blue, and purple have been removed from the loot pool Players no longer start with a white helmet Dev Note: Finding and equipping Helmets has always been a bit lackluster in both feeling the impact of wearing one and making the potential damage output a bit murky. Removing headshot damage reduction from the game makes damage more consistent, understandable, and easier to calculate. Gold Helmet Reworked into Gold Armor Upgrade Helmet Offers Improved Minor Healing perk that doubles the output of Cells & Syringes Sets the player’s Armor to 100 regardless of Level Leveling still required to unlock Legend Upgrades, but no longer affects armor while equipped No headshot damage reduction Chance to appear in Gold Bins after Bin Reset NEW Mythic Armor Upgrade Helmet Red tier introduced Sets player’s armor to 125 regardless of level Leveling is still required to unlock Legend Upgrades, but no longer affects armor while this item is equipped Red helmets offer no headshot damage reduction Appears in the Mythic Bin & late game Care Packages Dev Note: Both the new Gold and Red Helmets are designed to pull some of the passive power embedded in Legends and put it into the loot pool to create new items to chase and fight for. They’ll also create dynamic gameplay options for players to strategize which squadmates don these powerful new items. Knocked Down State Significantly increased crawl speed while knocked with and without knockdown shield raised POI Names on Drop Now able to see the name and loot tier of each POI projected over the POI during first drop Also includes Arsenal info to help drive drop choice AMMO & ATTACHMENTS Hop Ups: Hammerpoints have been removed from the loot pool Gold Magazines: time to reload while stowed decreased to 2s (was 5s) Optics: 1x Holo optic has been removed from the loot pool Replicator: reduced the amount of ammo to 1 stack per weapon (was 2 stacks) WEAPONS AR Havoc Rifle [Care Package] Damage increased to 21 (was 18) Headshot damage: 27 Beam Shot damage increased to 70 (was 53) Beam Shot headshot damage: 105 Hemlok Burst AR Damage increased to 20 (was 19) Headshot damage: 26 Nemesis Burst AR Damage increased to 17 (was 16) Headshot damage: 22 R-301 Carbine Damage increased to 14 (was 13) Headshot damage: 18 VK-47 Flatline Damage increased to 19 (was 18) Headshot damage: 25 LMG Devotion LMG Damage increased to 16 (was 15) Headshot damage: 20 L-STAR EMG Damage increased to 20 (was 18) Headshot damage: 25 M600 Spitfire Damage increased to 21 (was 19) Headshot damage: 26 Rampage LMG Damage increased to 30 (was 26) Headshot damage: 38 Reduced the decay rate of the revved state over time MARKSMAN 30-30 Repeater No charge damage increased to 43 (was 39) No charge headshot damage: 69 Full charge damage increased to 58 (was 53) Full charge headshot damage: 93 Slightly increased projectile size at long range Bocek Compound Bow [Care Package] Damage increased to 75 (was 70) Headshot damage: 120 Fire rate slightly reduced Removed Deadeye’s Tempo passive Shattercaps damage per pellet increased to 13 (was 12) G7 Scout Damage increased to 35 (was 33) Headshot damage: 56 Fire rate slightly reduced Slightly increased projectile size at long range Triple Take Damage per bullet increased to 22 (was 21) Headshot damage: 105 (all bullets) Slightly increased projectile size at long range Dev Note: Marksman weapons sit between the mid-range arsenal and snipers, but find themselves often outclassed by one of their neighbors. Their adjustments this season should make them feel more consistent at range, improve their performance when tracking enemies, and staying on target while providing headshots without stealing the play-making potential of our snipers. PISTOL P2020 Damage increased to 24 (was 21) Headshot damage: 30 RE-45 Auto Damage increased to 14 (was 13) Headshot damage: 18 Wingman Damage increased to 48 (was 45) Headshot damage: 72 Base magazine size reduced to 5 (was 6) With added magazine - White: 6, Blue: 7, Purple/Gold: 8 SMG Alternator SMG Damage increased to 18 (was 16) Headshot damage: 22 C.A.R. SMG Damage increased to 14 (was 13) Headshot damage: 17 Added Laser Sight barrel attachment Prowler PDW Damage increased to 16 (was 15) Headshot damage: 19 R-99 SMG [Floor Loot] Damage decreased to 13 (was 14) Headshot damage: 16 No longer has damage fall-off ADS strafe speed normalized to other SMGs No longer eliminates movement penalty when equipped Recoil increased Volt SMG Damage increased to 16 (was 15) Headshot damage: 19 SHOTGUN EVA-8 Auto Damage per pellet increased to 8 (was 7) No longer deals increased headshot damage Mastiff Shotgun Damage per pellet increased to 16 (was 14) No longer deals increased headshot damage Mozambique Shotgun Damage per pellet increased to 16 (was 15) Headshot damage: 60 (all pellets) Peacekeeper [Care Package] Damage per pellet increased to 12 (was 9) Headshot damage: 135 (all pellets) Choke speed significantly increased Fully choked blast pattern is significantly tighter Pellets pierce dealing 50% damage after the first enemy hit Dev Note: Shotguns are receiving a base damage increase, but losing their ability to deal increased headshot damage. They already represent incredible burst damage, but hitting those headshots create sharp output spikes that’s difficult to account for. This change creates a more understandable damage landscape that encourages players to land as many pellets as possible (instead of aiming for the head and whiffing half of them). Mozambiques will retain their headshot damage as a hybrid shotgun-pistol and the Care Package version of the Peacekeeper also keeps it to really lean into that slug shotty territory. SNIPER Charge Rifle Base damage unchanged Headshot damage (min. distance): 135 Headshot damage (max. distance): 198 Autofire headshot damage (min. distance): 101 Autofire headshot damage (max. distance): 149 Limb damage reduced to 70% (was 90%) Kraber .50-Cal Sniper Damage increased to 150 (was 140) Headshot damage: 210 Longbow DMR Base damage unchanged Headshot damage: 108 Limb damage reduced to 70% (was 80%) Sentinel Base damage unchanged Headshot damage: 126 Limb damage reduced to 70% (was 90%) Removed Deadeye’s Tempo passive Dev Note: For our Snipers, we’ve tuned their headshot damage to be much more impactful rather than increase their base body shot damage. This is to key into their role and fantasy as precision weapons that reward patient and skilled gameplay. To hammer this home, we’ve reduced the amount of damage they deal to limbs. These weapons benefit greatly from well placed shots and we don’t want that to change. LEGENDS Assault Class Perks New perks: Combat Reserve, Stowed Reload, & Battle Surge (detailed above) Removed Carry Extra Ammo & Access Weapon Supply Bin perks (now integrated into Combat Reserve) Support Class Perks Heal Expert Removed: Support Legends no longer heal double with small meds or have increased movement speed while healing Dev Note: The Support Class was very strong last season. The faster movement and double small med heals gave these Legends rapid combat-reset potential that made them effective skirmishers, but didn’t inherently have a team-oriented feel. While this was great during the season of Support, we felt their identity was stronger as revival experts and this change will let them focus on that team-oriented specialization rather than feeling hard to kill. Ash Predator’s Pursuit Removed ability to scan Death Boxes to reveal killers, but they’ll still show on the minimap and map with info on how recently they died NEW: press the Jump key while in the air to perform a dash Arc Snare Tether plants at location of projectile on impact rather than the hit player's location Tether is slightly harder to break and no longer gets instantly broken by some abilities Phase Breach Range increased to 100m (was ~76m) Travel time reduced Improved reliability of placement Removed one frame delay on placement preview Now has VFX to show max range when in placement mode Upgrades: Level 2 Murder Machine: removed One Minute to Live: removed Greedy Snare: moved to Level 2 NEW Dual Breach: adds additional ult charge Upgrades: Level 3 NEW Ghost in the Machine: adds additional Dash charge Dev Note: Ash was overdue for some improvements to her kit to resurge her as a top Apex Predator. Many of her changes aim to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of her abilities: the improved placement, distance and speed of her Ult, and the snare’s tether point snagging from the projectile’s point rather than her escaping target. Most notably, Ash sees the addition of a brand new movement passive - reminiscent of her titan’s ability of yore. Her new dash is an incredibly effective mid-combat repositioning tool or distance closer making her a more effective skirmisher when closing in on her prey or quickly out-maneuvering in a duel. We expect to see a lot of impressive Ash players rise to the top with many of her upgrades doubling her abilities this season. Ballistic Sling Now upgrades with Level by default Can now carry Crate Weapons and they will gain infinite ammo with Ult Whistler Tac now has 2 charges Overheat reaction time increased to 1.2s (was 1s) Smart Bullet on ground damage increased to 20 (was 10) This damage is now equal to the direct hit damage Tempest: squad gains a speed boost when empowered by Ult Upgrades: Level 2 Sling Shot: removed (integrated into base kit) NEW Killing Time: increases duration of Ult by 15s Upgrades: Level 3 Extra Bullets: doubles the number of Tac charges (was +1 charge) Quiet Time: Overheat now also silences enemy for 6s Dev Note: Ballistic has had a few updates, but has never really found his footing to lead the charge. Integrating the Sling and extra bullet upgrades into his kit gives more players access to the core of the Legend while empowering his Ult with speed—increasing his natural combat effectiveness and encouraging his squad to push and engage. Allowing Ballistic to carry a Crate Weapon in his Sling has always been something we’ve been dubious of, but this season we’re taking a bold stance to let Ballistic go…well, ballistic. The increased number of Tac charges should also allow players to more freely deploy the Overheat into their combat patterns or control the field if they also opt into the lasting bullet upgrade, giving more range of play and options for Ballistic. Crypto EMP: once again destroys Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection Loba Ult back to starting at 50% charge Dev Note: This was always intended as a short term buff to help Loba shine among an all-star Support lineup. However, it messed with the delicate dance that is landing off drop, which impacted long standing 'good' player behaviors around landing near your squad, looting, and using abilities into slightly more disruptive behaviors. Maggie Wrecking Ball Once again destroys Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection Will now destroy Newcastle’s Mobile Shield Dev Note: We’re returning these hard counters to empower Maggie in this Assault-focused season…for now. MAPS Pubs Kings Canyon Olympus Broken Moon Ranked Kings Canyon Olympus Storm Point Mixtape February 11-March 24, 2025 TDM: Thunderdome, Habitat, Skull Town, Estates, Zeus Station Control: Lava Siphon, Barometer, Labs, Caustic, Thunderdome Gun Run: Wattson, Estates, Thunderdome, Fragment, Skull Town MODES Mythic Mayhem Royale (February 11-March 3, 2025) Rampart’s new experimental care packages deliver three Mythic R-301 weapon variants Hornet (Yellow): faster movement and reload speed, Tac charge on shield break, Ult charge on knock Limelight (Green): helps replenish your squad’s health and shields when damaging enemies Vermilion (Red): increases critical hit damage and triggers Thermite on knocked enemies Redemption Trios & Duos (February 25-March 3, 2025) In collaboration with Creator Commissioner: Ninjayla Respawn Tokens are a new Mythic rarity Survival Slot item only available in this Takeover. If you are eliminated with this item in your inventory, you’ll immediately respawn back into the action At the start of the match, all players are given one Respawn Token Collect additional Respawn Tokens from: eliminating other players, Care Packages, and Mythic Supply Bins No respawn limit and no penalty for respawning multiple times Usable until the start of the final ring, then any equipped Respawn Tokens will be exchanged for EVO Armor XP They only last a short while when on the ground, so pick one up if you need one! Respawn Beacons can still be used to bring back players without Respawn Tokens Relic Weapons Trios & Duos (March 4-10, 2025) In collaboration with Creator Commissioner: Ninjayla Weapons spawn fully kitted Only weapons on the ground are Gold and Mythic tier Sights can be looted and swapped out, but all other attachments come with the weapon Increased supply drops each round which carry two Mythic tier weapons The second Mythic weapon replaces the Evo Caches Reduced Evo for scanning Care Packages Standard Trios & Duos March 11-24, 2025 LTM: Three Strikes Mystery Legends (March 11-24, 2025) In collaboration with Creator Commissioner: Oraxe Three Strikes returns with a twist modifier Mystery Legends All Legends will be selected for you before entering the Drop Ship Respawning will select a new random Legend Squads can have duplicate Legends With each EVO level up, you’ll gain all upgrades for that Level automatically and your Level will be maintained through respawns RANKED NEW Road to Ranked Challenges Introduced a new set of challenges to unlock Ranked for new players and returning players who have not yet reached the level requirement. Level 20 minimum still required to access Ranked and this is reflected as one of the challenges Existing players above Level 20 retain access Party restrictions apply: all members must complete challenges to access Ranked Dev Note: The previous system of only requiring Level 20 was very prone to abuse by third-party bots, and could also be achieved by players who preferred Mixtape or LTMs. This new system will ensure that all new players joining Ranked have done the required work in BR matches and tested their mettle to a sufficient level to earn a spot in the competition. SYSTEM NEW Bot Royale Tutorial Notes will appear to assist with Legends, weapons, loot, and gameplay scenarios Low ammo or health items also receive prompts to ping nearby desired loot items On by default for accounts below Level 20 and will turn off once that threshold is reached Can be manually turned on/off through the System menu under “Tutorial Systems” Weapon Mastery Trial simplification Re-designed all trials Removed weapon level restriction for trials Dev Note: The current Weapon Mastery system presented some issues, including overly complex gating mechanics that disrupt progression, trials demanding high player skill levels, and excessive reliance on randomness that can slow or stall progress. These new trials remove unnecessary randomness, shifting the focus back to the essence of weapon usage: dealing damages and eliminating enemies. If you’ve already completed trials and earned rewards they will remain unaffected. If your trials were partially completed or 90% done, no problem! Your progress will be converted, no need to start over. BUG FIXES Fixed an issue where the Mythic Bin could become merged with a Gold Bin Fixed more firing range realm spawning issues: Thermite VFX Maggie ball bouncing off of invisible doors Mirage decoys getting stuck on invisible doors Fixed rare issue that could prevent the ring VFX and other particles from spawning Mixtape: swapping to secondary akimbo weapons from loadouts will no longer play the first draw animation PK will no longer occasionally lock up after using the Choke Rechamber times can no longer be bypassed on the Sentinel and PK by swapping attachments Reactive weapons will no longer lose their reactive state after swapping Squadmate animations once again play during Legend selection "View upgrades" button in Legend locker will no longer take you to friends list LEGENDS Alter / Ash / Wraith: Void Vision (enemy highlighting) no longer applies on enemy portals Alter: Upgrades Tactical Cooldown+ and Void Vision returned to correct tier placements Lifeline Crashing will no longer occur when gliding or using the D.O.C. Heal Drone Gliding will no longer occasionally lower performance Pathfinder grapple can once again attach to D.O.C. Halo Mirage Fixed a crash that could occur when using Mirage's Ult near Gravity Cannons Lifeline’s D.O.C. now cloaks properly to prevent revealing Mirage (previous hotfix) Newcastle: Ult no longer canceled by Ash’s snare Revenant Resolved rare crash that could occur when pouncing Shadow Pounce now plays leap audio when spectating a Revenant Wattson: fixed upgrade that was allowing the placement of two interception pylons Valkyrie: Tac now working inside of D.O.C. Halo and near Dome of Protection’s edges Vantage: sprinting no longer available while using Ult Accelerant QUALITY OF LIFE Added further hardening to prevent hipfire cheats Added Account Level details Info about your Account Level progress and rewards granted at each future level Accessed via Lobby (top left), also displays XP bar and level progress Adjustments to Match Summary XP Gain, Challenge, and Pass progression added to end of match flow Squad Summary section now picks from a small set of stats instead of always showing “Revives,” “Respawns,” and “Time Survived” for unranked Duos and Trios Mixtape: disabled assist Ult gain with accelerated weapons which allowed for some Ults to be used too quickly Reactive skins now show their effects in the lobby menus Some Rat Spots have been eliminated across all maps AI Bots: Cover and Peeking Can now use geometry in the environment as cover Can also utilize “peeking” behavior to provide more of a challenge Plethora of bug fixes across all parts of the Bot experience Improvements and tuning on Easy and Normal difficulty Bots (E1 - N3 Difficulty) AUDIO Added Mono output option for players with limited hearing Mono audio combines left and right sound channels into one, making it easier for players with hearing impairments to hear all audio cues. It ensures no important sounds are missed, regardless of ear or stereo positioning. Friendly footsteps volume and audible distance reduced Friendly skydive volume reduced to allow for strategizing during drop (enemy volumes unchanged) Increased importance for zipline attach/detach and doors to ensure they are heard more consistently Reduced volume of squadmate and ambient audio while enemies are being revived Reduced volume for Fuse's Tac and Ult Reduced volume for Survey Beacons and Ring Consoles for self and squadmates (enemy volumes unchanged) Dev note: Audio can be crucial whether you’re the squad attacking or the one being attacked. We’ve adjusted multiple audio cues to assist with combat effectiveness, and have a few more initiatives in the works to optimize audio throughout the match. GRAPHICS Improved CPU rendering performance on all consoles DX12 (PC) Changed the way that ultrawide monitors handle 16:9 and 16:10 resolutions in full-screen mode. They will now have pillarboxing (black borders on left and right) and no stretching. This behavior can be disabled with +mat_wide_pillarbox 0 launch argument, if stretching is desired. CPU rendering performance improved 5%-10% (situation based) and some frame drops may be reduced Added a launch argument +mat_minimize_on_alt_tab 1 that allows behavior similar to DX11 where tabbing away from/clicking out of the fullscreen game causes Apex to minimize Improved loading performance after compiling shaders for the first time (up to 30% faster on some systems). Note that shaders always need to be pre-loaded to minimize gameplay stuttering. Added a launch notification for players with incompatible GPUs that DX11 support will be discontinued Play Apex Legends™ for free* now on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch™, and PC via the EA app, Epic, and Steam. Follow Apex Legends™ on X, Instagram, TikTok, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out our forums. Sign up for our newsletter today to receive the latest Apex Legends™ news, updates, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive offers, and more (including other EA news, products, events, and promotions) by email. This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible. For more information, please refer to EA’s Online Service Updates at https://www.ea.com/service-updates. *Applicable platform account and platform subscription (sold separately) may be required. A persistent internet connection and EA account required. Age restrictions apply. Includes in-game purchases.New Updates Coming with Apex Legends™: Takeover
NEW UPDATES COMING WITH APEX LEGENDS™: TAKEOVER We live to fight, Legends. This season we’re bringing the community to the forefront of Apex Legends with some of your favorites taking over content and competition. These Creator Commissioners will craft a series of challenges based on their own Apex experiences with a chance to earn cosmetics. Gear up with Arsenals, new one-stop shops stocked with weapons and ammo to hit the ground running. Purchase a Legend Spotlight Pass to find a potential new main and earn a Legendary skin for both your new Legend and a weapon. Add in Legend updates and bold meta changes, and we’ve got ourselves a party worthy of our sixth anniversary. Speaking of, our Anniversary Event kicks off at season launch with even more community created content and the debut of the Mythic R-301. This Takeover is a party you’re not going to want to miss. CREATOR COMMISSIONERS Creators take the wheel this season. Four different Creator Commissioners will step into the spotlight for two weeks each, bringing challenges to conquer, new and returning fan favorite modes, and fresh rewards. Week one you’ll chase glory together to complete Community challenges and ultimately determine how many Apex Packs† will be up for grabs the following week. Here are your community goals for each first week: Tier 1 completion: 10 total Apex Packs† earnable Tier 2 completion: 15 total Apex Packs† earnable Tier 3 completion: 20 total Apex Packs† earnable In week two, the hunt is on to earn those rewards! Work through five individual challenges to unlock a Creator-selected Legendary weapon skin and the Apex Packs† you chased in the first week. Participating in week one doesn’t automatically earn you rewards, so you’ll want to jump into matches that second week as well. Plus, earn a Banner Frame when you tune in to your faves on Twitch via Twitch Drops and a free Creator-themed tracker set in the Featured store to gift your friends! If you haven’t already, be sure to connect your EA account with your Twitch account in order to receive drops: instructions can be found here. Creator Commissioners and their Legendary choices: February 25-March 10, 2025: Ninjayla Legendary skin: Wingman’s “Death Ray” March 11-24, 2025: Oraxe Legendary skin: Kraber’s “The Pioneer” April 1-14, 2025: Apryze Legendary skin: Mastiff’s “Bone Breaker” April 15-28, 2025: Kaminari Kyupi Legendary skin: Mastiff’s “Tombstick” ARSENALS We’re bringing the arsenal this season with…well, Arsenals. This new addition to Battle Royale provides easy and consistent access to weapons and ammo of your choice. Stations will be located across all POI's on every map and, while their locations are fixed, the ammo type they will provide is random each match. In addition to providing our full armory of weapons, Arsenals will also provide relevant ammo and the ability to enhance weapons. You can enhance one weapon per Arsenal and that weapon must match the Arsenal's ammo type. Doing so will grant an upgraded attachment and provide an optic if the weapon is missing one. When bins reset, so too do Arsenals—giving you the ability to upgrade again with higher potency. The amount of ammo they provide also significantly increases after a reset. Locate Arsenals while you’re in the Dropship to inform your squad’s drop location, or spot them on the map and in-game HUD once your boots are on the ground. Prefer the hunt? Adjust how much info you want in the settings menu. The choice is yours. Pinging to request a weapon, ammo, or attachment will also automatically ping the nearest relevant Arsenal. META CHANGES We’re bringing a little extra heat to battles this season with a couple of meta changes that you’ll want to get your hands on and test yourselves. It’s buffs a plenty with all weapon classes getting adjusted to feel more competitive with Assault Rifles. That’s right, every single weapon is getting an update. The time-to-kill has been decreased not only with these weapon adjustments, but with updates to Armor, Helmets, and headshot multipliers. Legends aren’t missing out either—the Assault class is getting some hot new perks, and both Ash and Ballistic are getting some special attention. We’ve also made some adjustments to regen items to ensure you still have a fighting chance while taking on these lethal changes. Takeover Patch Notes drop on February 10, 2025, with all of the nitty gritty details. LEGEND SPOTLIGHT PASSES In the spirit of the season, why not let a new Legend take over your spotlight this season? Complete challenges with the new Legend Spotlight Pass to increase your proficiency with a potential new main. Progress through twenty levels to earn rewards that you’d normally have to wait for in shop rotations. You’ll also earn two Legendary Packs along the way: one at Level 10 with a weapon skin and one at Level 20 that grants one of ten available Legendary skins for that Legend. One Legend Spotlight pass can be purchased per season, per Legend in the in-game store and it also unlocks the Legend if you haven’t done so already. SEE YOU ON THE DROPSHIP So, are you ready to rise to the community challenge, Legends? There’s something for everyone this season from buffs to perks, rewards to passes, and even more around the corner. Who will you feel out first: a high-precision simulacrum or a formerly distinguished gentleman? Maybe the buffs of weapons or Arsenals calls more to your heart. There’s no wrong answers here—just the heat of battle. Takeover launches February 11, 2025. Play Apex Legends™ for free* now on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch™, and PC via the EA app, Epic, and Steam. Follow Apex Legends™ on X, Instagram, TikTok, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out our forums. Sign up for our newsletter today to receive the latest Apex Legends™ news, updates, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive offers, and more (including other EA news, products, events, and promotions) by email. This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible. For more information, please refer to EA’s Online Service Updates at https://www.ea.com/service-updates. *Applicable platform account and platform subscription (sold separately) may be required. A persistent internet connection and EA account required. Age restrictions apply. Includes in-game purchases. New Updates Coming with Apex Legends™: TakeoverApex Legends™: Anti-cheat and Matchmaking Update
Last year we made a commitment to you that we were going to continue to grow our communications and give you additional development insight. For our first dev blog of 2025, we’re sharing progress on the last two hot topics we covered: anti-cheat and matchmaking. We touched on both of these in our Dev Update video that launched today, but we wanted to give a written overview as well. You already know that anti-cheat is an ever evolving process, but we wanted to update you with the latest on teaming, botting, and actioning your reports. We chatted about matchmaking just ahead of the holidays, but there’s so much more to catch you up on including new features in the works. Here’s a TLDR of what we’re covering in today’s dev update: Anti-cheat Update: Recent efforts against teaming including recent action being taken on ~1,200 accounts across all platforms, including the removal of ~17.4 million ranked points An update on our progress against botting including a brand new machine learning model Report Feedback: a new feature that we’re investigating to provide additional insight into the report you sent in-game Brief touch base around a recently resolved incident that saw some high-profile accounts become compromised Matchmaking Update A sneak peek of in-progress features coming in the not so distant future: Unranked Skill Display, seeding skill values, and lessening Ranked resets Looking at some new and upcoming tests: npc “Apex Bots,” preferential matchmaking (solos vs. premades), and queue time adjustments Sharing some ongoing conversations for added transparency: Ranked premade restrictions, Ranked placement matches and skill difference and scoring Catch up before you jump in with our previous matchmaking and anti-cheat blogs, and keep an eye out on our social channels for more continual bite-sized updates such as the Linux blockage results or adjustments to matchmaking. ANTI-CHEAT UPDATE Anti-Cheat and game integrity will always be a top priority for us and the fight continues as we work to put in safeguards and evolve our systems to stop and get ahead of cheaters. This is another topic that we’ll share updates on as often as we can, whether it’s through social updates or blogs. Today we’re sharing some advances we’ve made in combating teaming and botting, and an upcoming feature to better your reporting experience. TEAMING While Apex is a team game at its core, it’s not a team’s team game. If you’ve not encountered this before, teaming is when multiple teams collude during a match for a shared goal. For those that have experienced this in the past, you might’ve noticed a decrease over the last few months. We’ve actively been targeting this negative behaviour in Ranked modes from multiple angles, including rolling out new automated teaming detection algorithms, swifter and more severe punishments, and stripping any ill-gotten ranked points from offenders. These efforts have led to action being taken on ~1,200 accounts across all platforms, including the removal of ~17.4 million ranked points, and we’ve seen a decrease in teaming thanks to this. We’ll continue to counter this exploitative practice and take appropriate action against bad actors. Teaming has no place in Apex. BOTTING There has been a recent increase in bots that’ve been circumventing our existing security measures and we’re actively working on addressing this. We’ve also created a brand new machine learning model that not only detects this new generation of bots, but was also built to be more future-proof to combat future variants and evolutions. At the time of writing this, our early reviews have found this new model to be incredibly accurate with low false negatives and we’re on track to have this in the live game by the time you’re reading this. Encountering bots like these in your play sessions is not only frustrating, but it also muddies the player pool. Often these accounts are being used for various malicious purposes after they’ve been levelled up including cheating and harassment. Our work here is not done, but we expect another decrease in cheaters and an overall improved experience by continuing to reduce these bots. REPORT FEEDBACK Knowing your report against a cheater has been effective has been long requested by our community. We’re still in early stages, but we can share that this is something that we’re investigating. Look for an update with more details about this potential feature in the future. Please continue to send your reports—each one has the potential to make an impact: If you’re unable to report in-game, you can also report players via EA Help For concerns regarding game vulnerabilities or anti-cheat by-passes, report via our CVD program RECENTLY COMPROMISED ACCOUNTS Towards the end of January, a few high profile pro and creator accounts became compromised. While this has since been addressed, we want to share that we discovered and resolved two exploits that contributed to this One exploit targeted a party privacy status that impacted custom matches, and the other capitalized on our server-to-server handshake verifications—both of which we are confident are fixed and secured. We thank those impacted for flagging this and working with us to get this rectified as quickly as possible so that they could get back into the Outlands. MATCHMAKING UPDATE Our last dev blog provided a good baseline which we can use to focus on what’s coming next, things that we want to test, and ongoing conversations. The team has been hard at work to act on what we’ve been hearing from the community of players as well as our own data. COMING SOON Some of what we’re sharing today is still in progress and may change before it goes live, but here’s a sneak peek at some features coming in the not-so-distant future. UNRANKED SKILL DISPLAY Pre-Match Skill Display in Ranked has been an asset and we’ve seen the impact it has had on your matches, strategizing, and potential flagging of issues. Since it’s seen such success in Ranked, we’ll be rolling out a version for Trios BR at the start of the next season. Its purpose is the same as its Ranked variant: to provide context on where your squad’s skill level sits within the rest of the lobby. Unranked Pre-match Skill Display will look a little different as there isn’t a visible skill value for players in pubs. Here’s what you can expect from this feature: How “wide” the skill is for the entire lobby Where the bookends of the lobby skill sit in the overall skill distribution of all players in this match Your squad’s skill in the context of both the lobby and the overall player-base Note: the following examples are taken from internal testing, so the width of the matches are for illustrative purposes only. In this match, the skill width is incredibly tight and all of the squads have some of the most skilled players for the game mode. Your squad’s skill rating is at the top of this lobby, but it may not make too much of a difference given how close all squads are here. The skill width of this match is very wide with the lowest skilled squad being on the lower end of the overall skill of players in the mode, and the highest skilled squad being quite skilled. Your squad’s skill score falls on the lower end, so you will be facing some more challenging opponents in this lobby. One thing that isn’t here that is in the Ranked Display is the number of squads throughout the distribution. We had an early version that included this, but it was not easy to read at a glance. We’ll be releasing a more simplified version to start with while we continue to iterate. SEEDING SKILL VALUES How players start with new modes and LTMs has varied in the past, but it’ll soon have a more consistent approach and result: your starting skill value when playing a new mode for the first time will be influenced by your skill value in other modes. Modes that you’ve played before (including returning LTMs) will already have your match history to work with. Your starting skill value will be more elastic than your other skill values, meaning that it can change more quickly and with a larger swing based on your performance. It will stabilize over a number of matches and your matches will get more consistent. TLDR: the launch of a new game mode will be less chaotic in terms of skill mixing. Now all players will have a starting skill value to match from and they should start to be paired with like-skilled players from their very first match. This will be coming to unranked matches first, but will quickly be followed by a solution that allows matchmaking to seed players into their correct Rank Tier based on their performance in other modes. LESSENING RANKED RESETS On the topic of skill mixing, this happens the most at the start of each Ranked season and each split. We’ve also seen a good amount of chatter about the dislike of both seasonal RP and split resets, and this is an active conversation for us. For the near future, we will be tuning the reset values and reset placements to reduce start-of-season skill mixing even more. This should help reduce skill mixing for players that participated in the previous season, but doesn’t prevent new Ranked players from climbing. This is just one step we’re taking to reduce skill mixing and more are on the way. TESTING These next items are either in testing or will be soon and we’ll aim to share some results and decisions for future in-game changes in a future dev blog. Note: the dates of these tests haven’t and won’t be published to avoid outside influence, but we’ll circle back and share after our internal analysis is done. APEX BOTS (NPC) Bot Royale created an approachable way to build your skills and onboard with a squad, but when you’re ready for Unranked pubs you’re thrown into the thick of it. It’s clear that you’re looking for tighter and fairer matches, especially those who are newer and early-tier players. We’ve started testing something that we think will not only help developing players, but also deliver on the lobbies you’ve been looking for. We’ve slowly been introducing a small and deliberate amount of npc bots, “Apex Bots,” into lower-tier public lobbies. These bots only deploy as opponents and will be a full squad; your squad will not be filled. We want players to have fun playing Apex, and we see this as a potential path to deliver more of that, but we didn’t want to just drop them on you. Enemy bots don’t always create the best in-game experience, so it’s worth repeating that this is a test. We’ll be monitoring and measuring for impact in a few areas: decreasing skill width, decreasing overall queue wait times, and whether or not this helps players increase their game sense and combat effectiveness. We hope to have enough data for next steps by mid-season, so that we can report back and share updates and if we can leverage these Apex bots for increased game health in the future. PREFERENTIAL MM: SOLOS VS PREMADES A desire for premades to play only against premades and solos to only play against solos is something we’ve frequently heard, but a full splitting of the queues isn’t a possibility that we’re going to pursue in the near future. We need to keep premade squads and solo queueing players together to maintain healthy queue populations and ensure that matchmaking quality isn’t compromised. It’s worth calling out that there would be a significant impact to queue times in order for this change to be felt by players and reach the level of desired impact. With that in mind, we’re going to run a lot of testing to understand the impact of adding preferential matchmaking criteria based on premade vs. solo. The goal of this is for the matchmaking system to take into consideration premade vs. solo queuers, and attempt to match them together as much as possible within the acceptable level of impact to queue times and skill width. We’re looking forward to digging into what is possible and feasible with this as it’s one of the most requested matchmaking changes. QUEUE TIME ADJUSTMENTS At the start of From the Rift, we adjusted how much time CWMM takes to expand the search for differently-skilled players in both Unranked and Ranked BR matches. While this increased wait times, it had the desired positive effect of making matches tighter overall, meaning more encounters with like-skilled players. This also led to more damage output and kills per player, and we believe that these combat-focused measurements roughly translate to both “fun” and “fairness” for the majority of players. While this has had some success, we’ll be continuing to experiment and optimize maximum wait times for various skill bands in order to increase match tightness. We’ve not yet found the sweet spot for this—more work needs to be done. ONGOING CONVERSATIONS These next topics we’re going to cover are ones that are hot both internally and externally. We’re just starting to formulate tests to help us validate our ideas on each and we’ll hopefully have more to share once they’re out of the investigating phase. RANKED PREMADE RESTRICTIONS With the Ranked Skill Display showing that yes, sometimes a Silver can be in the same lobby as a Master, it’s less clear that this is partially due to premade squads allowing players within 2 Tiers of each other. A Silver can pair with a Platinum, and they can then get pulled into a Diamond lobby which also allows Masters (including Preds). Too many ranks for one lobby. We could further restrict premades to reduce the width of matches caused by premade squads, but this would limit who could play together in its current form. We’re not a big fan of that route as this is a team game and forming squads with your friends to compete is something we’d like to see more of. This one needs the most cooking time, and we are going to keep talking about other solutions to this specific problem. RETURN OF RANKED PLACEMENT MATCHES We want players having fun as quickly as possible and one aspect of that is playing against players of similar skill. Previously, we had implemented placement matches where players would play 10 matches and then be placed into their starting Division and Tier for that Ranked season. We’re looking to return to a version of this system as it’s both easy to understand, and effective at detecting and properly placing players even before their first official Ranked match. This system will leverage skill seeding to assist in each player’s placement based on past performance in other modes, and will also rely on Ranked Placement Match performance to influence their starting position. SKILL DIFFERENCE AND SCORING This is a fairly new topic of discussion for us and it’s an interesting one: how can we leverage scoring outcomes to make the match more fair when there’s wider skill mixing in a lobby. One broad example would be if the least skilled player in the lobby got killed by the highest skilled player in the lobby, would they lose less RP? And vice versa, would they get a major bonus to RP (or XP if unranked) if the opposite occurred? Scoring and balance is a super delicate topic and requires a lot of work even before being ready for testing. Right now, the feedback we’re hearing is that it is very much not worth the risk of being in matches with higher-skilled players. While we are doing many things to actively reduce skill mixing, there will always need to be some level of mixing and want to explore options to make it more fair. SEE YOU ON THE DROPSHIP We’re committed to continuing the conversation with you, our community, and we’re reiterating that promise now in 2025. Apex Legends should be fun and competitive without any loss to the integrity of the game, and this is just the beginning of how we’ll be focusing on the issues that are impacting your experience in-game. Look forward to more of these updates as we continue to action this commitment while implementing changes, running tests on community requests, and improving on your in-game experience. Cheers for your patience and feedback, and we’ll see you in Takeover.
