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. Get the party started and jump in during the first two weeks of the event, February 11-25, for:
1.5x boost on all XP gained
2x boost on rewards for Battle Pass Dailies
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.
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
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
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, a new one-stop shop 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.
Apex 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 and 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
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:
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
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.
Apex Legends™ - Higround Prize Pack Giveaway
Want to win your very own Higround prize pack? Follow these steps for a chance to win your choice of a keyboard and mousepad:
The stage is set. The Legends, ready. There’s no denying you’ve captured the worlds’ curiosity. Question is: What are you going to do with it?
And keep an eye out next week for the Apex Legends: Takeover Gameplay trailer, Dev Updates, and more.
Learn more: http://x.ea.com/apxl/takeover
Apex Legends™ is a free-to-play* battle royale game where legendary characters battle for glory, fame, and fortune on the fringes of the Frontier. Play for free now on PlayStation® 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via EA App, Epic Games Store and Steam: http://x.ea.com/57366.
Check out our YouTube channel: http://x.ea.com/56710. Follow us on X: / playapex . Follow us on Instagram: / playapex . Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@playapex?lang=en
Credits: Production Company: Electronic Arts, Respawn Entertainment, Psyop, & Sun Creature Sound Design/Mix: Formosa All other categories: Electronic Arts & Respawn Entertainment
*Applicable platform account and platform subscription (sold separately) may be required. Persistent internet connection and EA account required. Age restrictions apply. This game includes optional in-game purchases of virtual currency that can be used to acquire virtual in-game items, including a random selection of virtual in-game items."
Celebrate with a cosmic twist in the Lunar Rebirth Event
Celebrate Lunar New Year with a cosmic twist, as Materia from the FINAL FANTASY™ VII REBIRTH Event returns via Rift Relics. Wield the devastating Buster Sword and equip Hop-Ups to boost your critical rate, and much more. Pull from the returning 36 FINAL FANTASY™ VII REBIRTH-themed cosmetics, with your owned items counting toward Loot progress. Earn rewards in the new Lunar Rebirth Reward Track and collect from 24 Event cosmetics as you work toward Alter’s Prestige Skin, complete with 3 Tiers, a unique Skydive Trail, and a unique finisher.
Transcend the Otherworld in the Astral Anomaly Event
Science, Legends, science we say! Brace for interdimensional chaos as Launch Royale returns with a vengeance and a turbocharged map rotation. Earn Bytes to redeem rewards like Epic skins for Seer and the Flatline. Pull from 15 event cosmetics including Legendary skins for Octane and more with an opportunity for Legendary skins for Horizon and Alter, each with a unique Character Select Animation.
LTM: LAUNCH ROYALE
Step back in time again for Launch Royale! Experience the LTM with the old school weapons, Legends, abilities, ruleset, but on all of the current day Apex Legends Battle Royale maps. Kings Canyon, World’s Edge, Olympus, Storm Point, Broken Moon, and District will all be available to play with Launch Royale. If you're craving that old-school Apex vibe on the modern maps, this is the best time to jump in and see where legends were born. Relive a refreshed nostalgia from January 7-20, 2025.
MILESTONE EVENT ITEMS
Pick-up 15 otherworldly limited-time cosmetics as you progress through the Astral Anomaly event. Each item received during the event counts towards bonus rewards that are automatically unlocked at milestones along the way including 10 Exotic Shards.
All 15 items will be available in Astral Anomaly Event Apex Packs† for the duration of the event, with each pack having a chance to unlock Alter’s “Anarchonaut” and Horizon’s “Dark Horizon” skins. Note: each event pack contains one event item and two standard items, and there are no duplicates of event items in these packs.
REWARD SHOP
Earn Bytes by completing daily event challenges, then check out the Astral Anomaly Reward Shop to redeem them for rewards and see your progress with all four event badges. Offerings will rotate halfway through the event.
PATCH NOTES
BALANCE UPDATES
Care Package
Opening a Care Package now grants EVO to the entire team instead of just the opener
Support Perk benefits will be disabled once a player reaches the Ring Lethality Warning time limit
Revive Expert benefits will still maintain a long cooldown before re-use after being used inside the ring
ATTACHMENTS & ORDNANCE
Accelerated Weapons NEW Accelerator: stock on the Nemesis Burst AR, G7 Scout, and CAR SMG
Increases EVO gained from damage
Increases Ultimate charge from damage
Knocks grant 30% ult charge as long as an Accelerator weapon is equipped
Dev Note: We are trying something fresh with this new Hop-Up and adding it to the base of these weapons by default. An ability like increased EVO and Ult charge gains makes the biggest impact when acquired early in a match, so we wanted to try and provide that exciting gameplay without the need to hunt for a rare item. Arc Star
Players will now be notified with a “STUCK” message when they have been stuck with an Arc Star
Dev Note: It can sometimes be difficult to know if you’ve been stuck by an Arc Star in the heat of combat. This messaging should help take the guess work out of making the right play. Hop Ups
Added Select Fire
Equippable on Prowler PDW and Charge Rifle
Adds a togglable automatic firing mode
WEAPONS
C.A.R. SMG
Damage increased to 13 (was 12)
Charge Rifle
Increased ammo capacity
Base Ammo: 6
White Mag:7
Blue Mag: 8
Purple Mag: 9
Increased projectile size at closer ranges
Increased projectile speed
Improved recoil
Maximum damage for range scaling now achieved at 200m (was 300m)
Reduced projectile gravity
Now takes Select Fire Hop-Up
Alternate fire: automatic firing mode
Damage reduced by 25%
Increased fire rate
Recoil improvements when in auto
Dev Note: The Charge Rifle is an absolute monsoon of a gun in the right hands, but it can be a bit tricky to get the hang of. We are taking a pass at making the Charge Rifle more approachable by increasing magazine capacity, adjusting recoil, lowering the range to get max damage, and adding the Select Fire Hop-Up into the mix.
Mastiff
Aim down sights blast pattern tightening reduced
Blast Pattern size increased
Increased the time before the Mastiff is ready to fire when raising
Raise and lower times slightly increased
Dev Note: The Mastiff has proven particularly strong this season and its consistency at range is a big part of that. We are smoothing out some timing issues which allowed niche double Mastiff builds to deal higher than average DPS and pulling some power out of its range by widening the blast pattern and ADS tightening.
Peacekeeper
Choke speed significantly increased
Increased projectile speed
Dev Note: When it comes to good range shotguns we want the Peacekeeper’s choked shot to be the main talking point so we’re speeding it up and making the projectiles fly faster. This should drastically improve its performance at range, particularly around hitting moving targets.
RE-45
Damage increased to 13 (was 12)
Dev Note: The RE-45 has taken a backseat since Akimbo took the stage. This damage bump should help it feel a bit more viable within the current meta.
And...lots more! Please visit the link HERE for the full update.
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Interdimensional chaos erupts in the Astral Anomaly Event
Science runs amok in the Astral Anomaly Event! Interdimensional chaos erupts as Launch Royale returns with a vengeance, across more maps with a turbocharged rotation. Dive into the mayhem and earn Bytes to redeem rewards in the Reward Shop including Epic Skins for Seer and the Flatline. Don otherworldly containment suits as you pull from 15 Event cosmetics including Legendary Skins for Octane and more with an opportunity for Legendary Skins for Horizon and Alter, each with a unique Character Select Animation.
