Apex Legends Season 9, otherwise known as the Legacy Update, goes live today. The update adds a brand new game mode, as well as a new Legend and accompanying weapon. The Olympus map has been altered, emotes have been introduced, and there’s a long list of bug fixes and gameplay improvements to check out.
Arenas is a new permanent game mode that deviates away from battle royale. The 3v3 mode tasks players with eliminating the other team on custom close quarters maps to win the round. Each team begins in a spawn room where weapons, gear and abilities are chosen. The overall winner is the first team to win at least three rounds with a two point lead over the other team. If the match is drawn at 4-4, a sudden death round will choose the winner. Party Crasher and Phase Runner are two new arenas created especially for the mode. These will be joined by three arenas created from areas of the battle royale maps and they’ll change on a bi-weekly rotation. Artillery from Kings Canyon, Thermal Station from World’s Edge, and Golden Gardens from Olympus will kick things off.
Speaking of Olympus, this map has been invaded by a fleet of ships. The lead ship, The Icarus, docked in the city and brought a parasitic plant with it. This has taken over the map, but it’s the ghost ship itself that is the biggest point of interest. The ship contains the bodies of unfortunate scientists who didn’t survive the landing and one of them contains a keycard. This gives players access to the ship’s bridge at the front, home to the best loot on the ship. Until next Tuesday, May 11, Olympus will be the only battle ryoale map in rotation so everyone gets to see the changes to the map.
Valkyrie is the latest Legend to join the game. She’s the daughter of Apex Predator Viper and managed to salvage his titan years after his death; it’s now taken the form of a rocket-firing jetpack. Her passive ability is the VTOL Jets that have a limited amount of fuel to allow her to reposition to higher places. The tactical ability is the Missile Swarm of mini-rockets that can’t be fired while flying. Her ultimate ability is the skyward dive which takes her (and her squadmates) into the sky to reposition far away across the map. Finally, she has scanning survey beacons that can reveal the next circle’s location.
The new Legend is accompanied by the new Bocek compound bow. Holding down fire increases the power, speed and damage of the shot. The bow uses arrows, a new rarer ammo type although they can be retrieved after being fired. Certain sights can be added to the weapon, while two new hop-ups — Shatter Caps and Deadeye’s Tempo — can be added simultaneously.
There are also new emotes for every Legend, a new Battle Pass, a new Ranked Season, and plenty of other changes that can be seen below.
Apex Legends Legacy Update Patch Notes
Starter Kit and Loot Changes
- Players will now start a match with a “Starter Kit” consisting of a Level 1 EVO Shield, Helmet, and Knockdown Shield, plus two Shield Cells and Syringes each.
- We’ve removed Level 1 Helmets and Knockdown Shields from the loot pool.
- Spawn chances for Level 1 EVO Shields in the loot pool have been significantly reduced.
- Along with the lowered or removed spawn chances for these items, we’ve rebalanced the loot pool such that higher-level versions of these items will appear nearly the same as they do now, but other item types will appear more often (weapons, ordinance, health, ammo, etc.)
Legend Updates
Low Profile Characters
- Low profile no longer exists! This trait has been removed from Wraith, Lifeline, and Wattson.
Lifeline
- Combat Revive: No longer deploys a shield. Can now revive two players at the same time. Can now cancel active revives in progress to allow your teammate to defend themselves with their knockdown shield.
- D.O.C. Heal Drone: Heal rate increased from 5hp per second to 8hp per second. Deployment time before healing begins reduced by roughly 33%.
- Care Package: Cooldown reduced from 6 minutes to 5 minutes. Now guarantees an upgrade (if possible) in three categories: Body Shield, Other Equipment (Helmet, Backpack, and Knockdown Shield), and Weapon Attachment, based on your team’s current gear when the Package arrives.
Octane
- Stim: Reduced cooldown between stims from 4s to 1s. Increased health cost from 12hp to 20hp.
- Increased bullet spread while in the air and shooting from the low Launch Pad trajectory.
Loba
- Burglar’s Best Friend: Can now run and slide at full speed while aiming the bracelet and while the bracelet is in the air. Loba will no longer be slowed after translocating.
- Fixed a lot of bugs that caused bracelet tosses to fail.
- Black Market Boutique: Increased cooldown from 90s to 120s.
Horizon
- Gravity Lift: Reduced lift speed by 30%. Reduced side-to-side acceleration. Limited the time you can sit at the top of Gravity Lift to 2 seconds. Increased cooldown from 15s to 20s.
- Horizon’s abilities will now get zapped by Wattson pylons.
Fuse
- Knuckle Cluster: Fuse now has two stacks of Knuckle Cluster. Reduced cooldown from 25s to 20s.
Bangalore
- Smoke Launcher: Thickened Bangalore’s smoke.
Bloodhound
- No longer receives assists from Eye of the Allfather.
Crypto
- Crypto’s drone can now scan and open care packages.
- Can no longer use his drone to “hijack” a respawn beacon that’s already in use.
Weapons Updates
Marksman Weapon Category
With the introduction of the Bocek bow, we felt it was a good time to introduce a new weapons category, Marksman Weapons, which will include the G7, 30-30, Triple Take, and Bocek. Weapons in this category are precision weapons that are most effective up to medium-long range, and are the sort of in-betweens of Assault Rifles and Snipers. This allows us to begin moving the settings of these weapons towards more consistent value for the class, and make the settings of ARs and Snipers more consistent with less outliers.
For starters, we are increasing the movement speed while aiming down sights for marksman weapons; They were at sniper speeds, and will now be between sniper and AR speeds. Additionally, we have done some targeted normalization of hipfire spread amounts.
Supply Drop Rotation
This season, we’re taking the Peacekeeper out of the supply drop and putting the Triple Take in its place. Of course, with any supply drop change, these weapons will have their stats updated. See how each weapon changes down below.
Crate Weapon Drop Rates:
Since we are exchanging a shotgun with a marksman weapon, now was a good time to rebalance the drop rates of crate weapons. The Kraber will spawn less often in the early game and more often in the mid game to better accommodate its power. The Triple Take will be the most common early game crate weapon, with the Prowler being the most prominent late game crate weapon.
Fully Kitted Rotation
- Added: Wingman, Bocek, R99, Hemlock, and Sentinel
- Removed: R301, 30-30 Repeater, Mozambique, Longbow DMR, and Spitfire
Hop Ups
- Shatter Caps – Fire select to toggle between standard mode and shatter mode. In shatter mode, rounds split into a blast pattern on firing. This hop up will be equipable to the 30-30 Repeater and the Bocek.
- Deadeye’s Tempo – Firing at the perfect moment increases fire rate. This can currently be attached to the Sentinel and the Bocek.
- To make room, the Hammerpoint and Skullpiercer hop ups are being vaulted for now, and won’t be available.
Assault Rifles
- Reducing the headshot multiplier for all assault rifles from 2.0 to 1.75
Peacekeeper
- It comes with the Precision Choke by default, which can be toggled off
- Pellet damage reduced from 10 to 9
- Rechamber time increased from 0.9 seconds to 1.1 seconds
- Reload times increased (regular from 2.45 to 2.5, empty from 3.35 to 3.5)
- Pellet spread increased in general, and spread when charged increased for all charge levels (from 0.65/0.45/0.2 to 0.85/0.65/0.35)
- Quickly loses charge after leaving ADS
Triple Take
- As a crate weapon, it will come with a 9 ammo clip and 63 reserve ammo
- Fire rate increased from 1.2 to 1.3
- Time to full charge reduced from 1.1 seconds to 1 second
- Retains charge briefly after leaving ADS
- Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons — faster than snipers, slower than ARs
- Increased spread while airborne and aiming down sights
Havoc
- Increased recoil controllability early in the pattern
Spitfire
- Reduced recoil controllability early in the pattern
30-30 Repeater
- Increased leg damage multiplier from 0.75 to 0.85
- Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons — faster than snipers, slower than ARs
G7 Scout
- Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons — faster than snipers, slower than ARs
- Increased hipfire spread size (reduced accuracy) to be more in line with other marksman weapons
Longbow
- Increased headshot multiplier from 2.0 to 2.15
Wingman
- Increased headshot multiplier from 2.0 to 2.15
Mozambique
- Increased magazine capacity from 4 to 6
- Moved the lower 2 pellets inward in the blast pattern
P2020
- Increased bullet damage from 15 to 18
- Lowered fire rate from 8.5 to 6.25
Arc Stars
- Aim and movement slow removed from the initial stick.
Quality of Life
- Badges are now sorted by categories and can be filtered by “all” or “unlocked only”. This suggestion came directly from players. Thank you! It’s so much better!
- When looting death boxes, players can now see health bars for everyone on the team.
- Challenges can now be “favorited” by going into the challenges menu and right clicking a challenge. That Challenge will then be added to a new favorites tab that will appear in the lobby and in the match’s map screen.
- Pressing and Holding F2 while in-game will bring up the ability description page for your character. This is only available on PC.
- Players can now request better equipment by going into their inventory and pinging a piece of equipment.
- Your first Challenge Reroll of the day is now free.
- Rerolling your challenges will allow you to choose from either BR-focused challenges or Arenas-focused ones.
- Holo Sprays, Quips, and Emotes, can be favorited. These will be used whenever the player is prompted to do a random emote.
- Club Invites v2: You can now include what you want to play when you send your clubmates a party invite via the Club tab. Select as many club mates as you want to send the invite to at once via the member list.
- Ranked: Fixed edge cases where an abandon penalty would be incorrectly applied due to server errors.
- Flight path adjustments: Removing edge dropship flight paths to prevent matches where large portions of the map receive little to no traffic. These screenshots show a before/after comparison of possible flight paths on Kings Canyon.
Ring Update
We’re continuing work from the Fight Night update to improve match pacing towards the end of the game. We’re slowing down the closing speed of the late game Rings to allow you more time to fight and maneuver your way into the Ring. We’re also reducing the “waiting” time before Rings 4 and 6 start to close.
- Ring 4 pre-shrink time reduced from 2:00 to 1:45
- Ring 4 shrink speed reduced from 33 second close time to 40 seconds
- Ring 5 shrink speed reduced from 20 second close time to 40 seconds
- Ring 6 pre-shrink time reduced from 1:30 to 1:00
- Ring 6 shrink speed reduced from 1:40 close time to 2:00
Bug Fixes
Bloodhound
- Fixed an issue with the Tactical UI not showing while in Bloodhound’s Ultimate.
Pathfinder
- Gas Traps and Jump Pads will no longer float into the sky when placed next to a zipline.
Wraith
- Slight wall bumps no longer inadvertently cancel Wraith’s tactical.
Mirage
- Decoys no longer die after a tick of thermite damage.
Octane
- Ordinances will no longer get stuck and disappear when being bounced off of Jump Pads.
- Death Totems will no longer bounce when a Jump Pad is placed under it.
- Players will no longer have weapons drawn if they are knocked as they enter the Fight Night ring via a Jump Pad.
- Updated Octane’s Helicopter emote to correctly remove his leg for which he is using it to do said helicoptering.
Wattson
- Fixed the “Extend” prompt for Watson’s fences not appearing in certain situations.
- Haute Drop skin will no longer block view when reloading the Sentinel.
Loba
- Fixed more areas where Loba’s Bracelet fails.
- Red Handed skin on consoles will now properly animate.
Rampart
- Mobile Respawn Beacon now has proper collision with Amped Cover.
- Jumping on and off a damaged Shiela will no longer transfer the flame effect to your weapon.
Horizon
- Players will no longer have weapons drawn if they are knocked as they enter the fight night ring via a Gravity Lift.
- 1x holo sight will no longer block view when using certain skins.
- Fixed an issue with NEWT not getting refunded if it immediately dies due to a bad spot.
Fuse
- 1x holo sight will no longer block view when using certain skins.
Flatline
- Part of the iron sight was being displayed over the whole weapon.
Prowler
- Supply Drop Prowler can now toggle fire modes.
Sentinel
- Moved tool tips to not overlap hop up icons.
- Fixed a graphical issue when swapping to Sentinel.
Misc.
- Fixed a menu issue with the advanced look options being hidden.
- Survey beacons will now appear on the map when teammates are respawned.
[Source: EA]
