Respawn Entertainment pushed journalists in the arenas of Legacy, and at the same time revealed some details about one of the biggest updates of Apex Legends, which on consoles and PC will start already on May 4. All the most interesting details are collected in the article.
Despite a modest start and pessimistic press forecasts, Apex Legends continues to gain popularity among fans of royal battles. Only for the last couple of years, the Respawn Entertainment project has gathered around itself more than 100 million unique players, and the developers do not plan to stop there.
"The new season of Legacy will be the culmination of two years of experimentation and work on innovations. After studying audience reaction to temporary events, we've decided to introduce a permanent Arena mode to Apex Legends - fast and fun matches for those who want to try something new based on the game's mechanics," said Apex Legends director Chad Grenier in his welcome speech.
Of course, the developers will not be limited to one additional mode - players are waiting for new weapons and a character with unusual mechanics, which, among other things, will be associated with a plot twist that changed one of the standard locations of the website online game from the developer Friv2Online Games Studio. Respawn Entertainment employees told about everything in order.
"Arena" will be the second multiplayer activity on a par with the standard "battle royal". Related tasks will supplement the list of daily tasks. Matches will be held in squad to squad format until one of the teams wins three times. The duration of each match will be no more than 15 minutes.
"In the Arena, players will be able to hone their play with their favorite characters, as the inherent element of 'randomness' in Apex Legends is minimized here. They will fight the same opponents round after round, study their behavior and come up with new strategies. And most importantly, they will be able to concentrate on the firefight, because they will no longer have to worry about finding loot," said arena designer Robert West.
Teams start each fight in the revival room and get access to the store, as it is implemented in Valorant or Counter Strike. Guns, upgrades for them, basic and ultimatum abilities will have to be bought with materials, as well as consumables like grenades, first aid kits or energy cans.
Before the start of each round, the store section displays which weapons, of what quality level, will be dropped with the nearest airdrop. A capsule with three guns and ammunition will land in the arena some time after the match starts.
"Battles will unfold in small areas of the main maps, where players like to land most often. We plan to introduce new locations gradually, every two weeks. Three maps will be available at launch: Artillery from Canyon Kings, Thermal Station from Edge of Light, and Golden Gardens from Olympus," said level designer Dave Ozy.
By the way, not only the timer will drive the opponents - the ring has not gone anywhere, it rapidly narrows to the center of the arena, forcing the participants of the match to act more and more decisively.
Next, we were introduced to Kairi Imahara called "Valkyrie" - the daughter of "Viper" from Titanfall 2, who will be the new hero of the ninth season of Apex Legends. Studio writer Ashley Reed noted that this collaboration will further open up the Titanfall universe, and will change the familiar world of Apex Legends.
The friv game's lead designer Daniel Klein told us about how Valkyrie's abilities work:
"Lest you think that Kairi will a priori dominate at the expense of jetpacks, know that they are quite slow and it is very easy to shoot a girl in flight, because the Valkyrie is not able to maneuver. So players will have to think twice before taking off when an enemy is nearby," Klein explained.
"To pick up a weapon or throw a grenade while the Valkyrie is flying will have to disable the jetpack, and only a missile strike can be accomplished while hovering in the air. Missiles do moderate damage, which if and grows from the number of hits, then insignificantly. The danger is that a hit for a short period of time completely paralyzes the victim," Daniel says.
"Kairi can take off with the entire squad, commanding the flight as the lead. Her ultimates are perfect for quickly moving the team to another position, as well as for scouting the territory alone, because the targets marked by the Valkyrie's scanner are also visible to her allies," said the chief designer of Apex Legends.
Meanwhile, the Olympus map, which appeared in the game at the beginning of the seventh season, will undergo major changes in the ninth season. The city hovering in the sky above the planet Psamat was attacked by cyclopean aggressive plants that arrived aboard an unknown spaceship. From here, the storyline of Legacy takes off.
Players will have to carefully explore the revamped area, complete story missions, earn rewards from treasure sets and follow the development of the new comic book "Antigen Legacy", which will shed light on the origin of the mysterious fleet of derelict ships that appeared in the skies above Olympus.
Toward the end of the presentation, Respawn Entertainment showed off a new weapon that will appear in the game with the release of the Legacy season. It is a composite bow "Botsec" - a highly accurate weapon for medium range, with the appearance of which in Apex Legends will also be added a new type of ammunition - arrows.
"This is the quietest weapon in the friv game - perfect for stealth enthusiasts. The arrow is barely audible, making it difficult to find the archer by sound. But the direction of the shaft can give it away if the archer misses and the arrow hits a wall near the target," Daniel said.
Throwing projectiles that don't hit the target will be stuck in the world objects, and players will be able to collect them or find them in the loot of enemies killed with the bow. Hop-Up attachments will allow you to turn your bow into a rapid-fire weapon or a shotgun that fires several arrows at close range.
As a reminder, the ninth season of Legacy kicks off on May 4, but you can get your hands on Apex Legends for free today. The friv game is available for download on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and MS.
