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New Apex Legends Update Hints At Upcoming Season 4 Content

Maybe the Volt submachine gun will come to Respawn's battle royale in Season 4.

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The latest event for Apex Legends, Grand Soirée Arcade, has officially begun. The limited-time event will continue through to January 28, offering seven brand-new modes to play and several new legendary character skins to unlock. The event launched with an accompanying update, which implemented several nerfs and buffs for different characters, bug fixes, and hints to Season 4 content. [Update: Respawn has released the Apex Legends Season 4 update and its accompanying patch notes. The big addition is the playable character Revenant, but even if you have no interest in him, there's a lot to dig into: map changes, balance tweaks, a new type of ammo, and a whole lot more. There's also a battle pass with skins and rewards to earn.]

In terms of the playable legend meta, Gibraltar and Crypto have both been buffed while Wraith has been nerfed. Gibraltar now has a third passive: faster squadmate revival while inside his Dome Shield. Crypto's drone is now much harder to kill--having 30 health instead of 1--and the EMP it creates no longer affects squadmates' traps or slows them down. Friendlies will still take shield damage, though.

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Now Playing: Apex Legends Grand Soiree Arcade Event Is Live!

When activating both Into the Void and Dimensional Rift, Wraith will now only move at the combined speed of both abilities without the added boost she had before. The cooldown to use Into the Void has been increased from 25 seconds to 35, which will make it harder to rely on the ability multiple times in the midst of a firefight or when escaping the zone wall.

As stated before, the update also addresses several bug fixes--the majority of which are outlined in the full patch notes below. However, of note, is a fix to the bug that was causing the character select screen to only display your own skins, not that of your teammates. The community has been vocal about the issue since prior to the Holo-Day Bash event, so it's nice to see it finally addressed.

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The most interesting change in the update is the removal of extended energy mags, taking away the option to expand the overall clip size of the Triple-Take sniper rifle, Havoc assault rifle, and Devotion light machine gun. Though the Triple-Take's default clip size is unchanged, the Havoc's magazine is now 32 shots and the Devotion's magazine is 44. In the patch notes, Respawn writes "that the removal of energy mags seems a bit odd, but it will make much more sense with the release of Season 4," before going on to admit the change went live by mistake and wasn't supposed to until the start of the next season.

Though it doesn't confirm it, the removal of extended energy mags does seem to support the rumors that the Volt submachine gun is coming to Apex Legends in the near future, continuing the trend of repurposing Titanfall 2 weapons for the battle royale. In Titanfall 2, the Volt is one of the best weapons for use on the move, as it has the best hip-fire accuracy of any firearm and excellent range. If the Volt is added to Apex Legends, it likely will be as an energy weapon. Having an option to extend its clip size could possibly make the gun too powerful, especially when used by characters that can fight while moving at high speeds through the air, like Octane and Pathfinder.

Apex Legends January 14 Update Patch Notes

General Bug Fixes

  • Fixes for various script and code errors that were causing crashes.
  • Fixed a bug where the out of bounds timer would not display when perching on top of some buildings in Capitol City.
  • Fix for cases we saw where players would receive a client error when fighting Wattson.
  • Fixed issue with Octane's Laughing Fool skin blocking player vision when using the 1x Holo Sight.
  • Fixed issue where players could get into unintentional hiding spots in the Train tunnels and around multiple buildings on the map.
  • Fixed bug where the minimap was showing an incorrect view of the landscape east of the Sorting Factory and Capitol City.
  • Fixed bug where the trajectory line wouldn’t appear when trying to aim ordnance.
  • Fixes for cases where the final circle was ending in a bad location.
  • Fixed an issue with the Ghouls and Ghost Peacekeeper skin not displaying the correct animation in-game.
  • Fixed the bug where a squadmate selects a character in Legend Select and the Legend is not displaying the skin that is currently equipped by the player.

Legend Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where if anyone picks up gold shields while inside of a Gibraltar dome shield they will receive 63% faster healing when it should stay at 50%
  • Fixed a couple of bugs with Bloodhound Passive skill: players could not see timers when looking at enemy tracks [clues] and tracks would expire 30 seconds sooner than expected.
  • Fixed bug where Wraith could take damage from Thermite ordnance while using her Tactical or Ultimate abilities.
  • Fixed visual bug for when Crypto first drops into game, the Drone UI reports that it is "recharging" (as if it has been destroyed pre-drop), but progress does not complete / progress.
  • Fix for Wattson’s Ultimate to prevent being able to deploy an Interceptor Pylon through walls.

Legend Meta

  • Gibraltar
    • Passive: Gibraltar revives squadmates faster while inside the Dome Shield.
  • Wraith
    • Removed the bonus move speed Into the Void and Dimensional Rift at the same time. Wraith will now move at their combined movement speed when they are both activated.
    • Increased cooldown for Into the Void: 25 seconds -> 35 seconds.
  • Crypto
    • Drone and EMP improvements.
    • Surveillance Drone increased the health 1 -> 30.
    • EMP no longer affects friendly traps/deployables.
    • EMP no longer slows friendlies.

Change To Energy Mags

  • Extended Energy Mags removed
  • HAVOC mag size: 32
  • Devotion mag size: 44
  • Designer Notes: We know that the removal of energy mags seems a bit odd, but it will make much more sense with the release of Season 4! It takes a while to make the bigger changes you see in the new season updates, and we generally make sure to filter out these changes from preceding mid-season updates. This time we made a mistake and shipped a change that wasn’t intended to go live until Season 4.

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