Apex Legends season 16 ‘Revelry’ won’t introduce new Legends
Apex Legends will enter its 16th season on February 14. Titled “Revelry,” the new season will not introduce any new Legend characters to the game.
Respawn Entertainment game director Steve Ferreira explained that the player base for Apex has matured alongside the game, so rather than adding new content for Season 16, they want to concentrate on balancing the meta and making it accessible to all players.
Agreeing with Ferreira, design director Evan Nikolich said the pause on new character additions was meant to give players time to “learn and master” the current meta.
Nikolich also told fans not to worry because there will still be new legends in future seasons. He explained that the developer “wanted to use Revelry as a chance to dig deep” and concentrate on improving the core parts of Apex that have kept players coming back for four years.
The company is adamant that this goal would be accomplished through significant rebalancing and revisions to the Legend classification system, giving each class its unique combat ability.
New class system
Beginning in Revelry, Legends are grouped into broad categories. The new overhaul will give each Legend a distinct Class role and grant them extra Class-specific benefits.
With the new class system, players will be able to choose between Assault, Skirmisher, Recon, Controller or Support. Respawn will discuss in further depth the capabilities and overall balance of these classes later this week.
Currently, the 23 playable characters in the game are classified into four distinct classes – Offensive with nine Legends, Defensive and Recon with six each and Support with two.
New weapon
The energy class is getting a new weapon called Nemesis, as shown in Monday’s season premiere trailer.
Nemesis is a fully automatic, burst-fire assault rifle that fires energy weapon rounds. It can be used in bursts of four shots. Holding the trigger down keeps it going, unlike the hemlock.
Once completely ramped up, the Nemesis functions similarly to the Devotion but without needing a turbocharger. Unlike the Devotion, however, it retains its charge for a while before discharging if it is not fired in a minute.
Deathmatch mode
The much-requested team deathmatch option will come with the new season. Players will be able to join a line for team deathmatch games for a limited period.
Two teams of six players compete in one match of this mode. A round is won by the first team to reach 30 kills. Players must win two matches to advance to the next round.
Players in a deathmatch select a character and one of the five weapon load-outs before the match begins. They are free to swap out within the time frame between respawns.
Uncertain future
This week, Electronic Arts and developer Respawn Entertainment announced that Apex Legends Mobile would shut down after less than a year of operation.
Two new Legends, Fade and Rhapsody, are recently playable only in the mobile version of Apex Legends.
However, Respawn has yet to confirm whether or not these characters, or any others from Apex Legends Mobile, will be added to the main game.