Apex Legends Hunted

Apex Legends: Hunted Is Shaking Things Up Again

The latest season of Apex Legends is launching on 9th August (early morning 10th August for Aussies) and will be titled Apex Legends: Hunted. Respawn has utilised this season launch to introduce a lot of revamps to older mechanics and locations of the game to bring a whole new fresh take on gunplay, map strategy & more, particularly focusing in on Kings Canyon and the greater State of Apex.

Kings Canyon Back On The Throne

Kings Canyon is the OG map of Apex Legends and after 13 seasons of tweaks, add-ons and destruction, it’s safe to say the state of Kings Canyon hasn’t been one overly favoured by the community. One of Respawn’s primary goals for the latest season was to take a deep look at Kings Canyon, in particular the overall map health, and give it the revamp and makeover it so desperately needed. The newest Kings Canyon in Apex Legends: Hunted, has had tunes across the board, solving balancing issues like loot dispersion and balanced drops, pain points such as pacing and team collision timing as well as an overhaul to the map’s lighting providing a much more vivid colour palette. Respawn also combed through the maps POIs and traversal paths to give players, who are familiar with Kings Canyons layout, a noticeable difference.

Key POIs, where teams have been found bunkering down in, have received massive changes to assist in cleaner interactions and combat, forcing teams to play smart and hard, instead of favouring any classic “rat” mentality. The Cage has seen a level removed and majority of its walls taken away, Hillside’s (just near Capacitor) buildings have been largely removed and replaced by a more two tier platform location, Broken Relay will now be called Basin and has several buildings added to incentivize players to drop and move around the point more, not too mention the newest POI addition in Relic, taking its position as the new Skull Town and bringing back the classic Kings Canyon gameplay players love.

It’s not only Kings Canyon that is getting the ‘classic to modernised’ rework. A tonne of mechanics and systems players have become used to over seasons 1-13 have been shaken up.

Apex Legends Hunted

Level Cap Increase Is Prestige

The much anticipated Level Cap Increase will launch with this new season, doing away with the rumoured additional 200 level increase and instead looking at a system which mirrors Call Of Duty’s Prestige levelling. Players will now be able to loop through the 0-500 level system an additional 3 times, making it a 2000 level progression system all together. But if that doesn’t excite you enough, with the new loop system in place, combined with the rate players receive Apex Packs whilst levelling, players will now be 100% guaranteed the acquisition of a Heirloom Apex Pack during their course of levelling up.

New Attachment Is Laser Focussed

A new attachment is hitting the battlefield in the form of a Laser Sight. The Laser Sight will be replacing the Barrel Stabiliser on SMGs and Pistols, pushing the two gun types into a more defined category and gunplay focus. The Laser Sight attachment will bring a ‘large hip fire spread reduction’ and players will be able to customise the colour just like reticule sights. It’s important to note that players will be able to see the laser sight design on their guns, providing new visuals and hip fire information during gunplay, however Respawn has specifically design the sight so enemies will not be able to see the laser in ways that give away player positioning (ie. across map, inside buildings etc) and instead may only notice a small beam during close quarter combat.

MAJOR Ammo Changes To Heavy Favourites

One of the massive change ups hitting this season is in the form of two major Heavy type weapons switching up their ammo categories. The Wingman will now use Sniper ammo as well as a sniper extended mag, and the Spitfire will now run Light ammo.

Apex Legends Hunted

Shotgun Wars: The EVA-8 Strikes Back

The EVA-8 was once a prime shotgun choice in the Apex Games. Hitting hard and fast, it could apply a great deal of pressure and panic on an opposing team…and then it got nerfed. In the spirit of this new season’s theme of ‘reworking the classics’, Respawn has written a love letter to the EVA-8 saying “We want you back!” – so back the pallet blasting EVA-8 comes. The EVA-8 will now boast an increased fire rate, the bolt attachment effect will increase and the double tap is back baby!

And the Gold Knockdown Goes To…

The Apex community has screamed for months about the Gold Knockdown Shield’s Self Revive perk, being an element that has brought many a frustration to squads in final circle clashes. Well, grab your squamates and rejoice because this season the Gold Knockdown Shield no longer has a Self Revive perk (pause for applause). It will instead take the Gold Backpack’s perk of extra shield and health upon revive (a great compliment to those Newcastle mains). The Gold Backpack will now sport the Deep Pockets perk, allowing the user to stock extra health items per slot ie. the ability to stack 3 batteries in one slot instead of 2/to stack 2 phoenix in one slot instead of one etc.

So What’s Going In the Care Pack?

And of course, the major question you’ve been dying to know, what’s coming out and going into the care package this season? Well, for those G7 Scout and Volt fans, these guns will be returning to floor loot and the Bowcek and Rampage will be going in to be our new Red Tier dominators.

Apex Legends Hunted

Not too much has been said by the Respawn team about this season’s Ranked modes, apart from them still monitoring the most recent changes and community feedback, but have stated to be on the lookout for some very exciting LTM modes dropping this season, which will be sure to surprise. All in all, Apex Legends: Hunted looks to bring some great new updates to the game, flipping the classic elements players have loved (or hated) and giving everyone a whole new way to play and become champions.