Last week, Apex Legends developer Respawn finally unveiled Apex Legends Season 9 via an intense cinematic trailer that introduced us to the incoming playable character, Valkyrie. The eight-minute video (at the bottom of this article) introduced us to the incoming Legend but didn’t show an awful lot about what we can expect from this new Season – though it was nice to get a little video to celebrate the game hitting that massive 100 million player landmark. But Respawn, eager to drum up as much enthusiasm as possible for the new Season, has published a new trailer showing off some more features we can expect to see in Apex Legends: Legacy. The headline update of the new Season is the introduction of Valkyrie, a new playable Legend (and daughter of one of the main antagonists from Titanfall 2). She is part of the Recon class which means she has the option to scan survey beacons to reveal the next circle’s location. Valkyrie’s abilities are as follows:
VTOL Jets (Passive): Press jump while in the air to engage jetpack. Missile Swarm (Tactical): Fire a swarm of mini-rockets which damage and disorient the enemy Skyward Dive (Ultimate): Press once to prepare for launch. Teamates can interact with Valkyrie to join the launch. press again to launch into the air and skydive
Legacy plans to introduce a major new way to play Apex Legends in the form of Arenas mode – a more traditional PvP mode that definitely has its roots in older Respawn games (looking at you, Titanfall). Arenas will allow you to take part in 3v3 round-based modes across five different maps and, crunching the intensity we know from the 20-squad battle royale and pushing into the eponymous Arenas “where there’s nowhere to hide”. “To win an Arenas match, you need to win at least three rounds and be ahead of the enemy team by two points, or end up in a winner takes all showdown in the 9th match,” Respawn told us. It’s more like Valorant or CS:GO than a battle royale in that respect, then. Each round starts fresh with base equipment and some materials to spend – so it’s not like the all-or-nothing setup you’ll see in Apex Legends proper. “Players will decide how to approach each round by using materials to purchase weapons, upgrade them, and pick up any additional supplies they need.” Each round, more materials are rewarded, allowing you to work (slowly) towards your ideal setup in the latter rounds. Ultimates and Tacticals are also limited.
As we’ve seen previously, the new Season will also introduce the Bocek Bow: a powerful and deadly weapon (for those with the skill to wield it). It’s capable of inflicting tremendous damage at medium range, but there’s a lot of risk/reward since it takes a fair amount of time to reload after each shot. The Bocek will come with two new hop-ups: • Dead Eye’s Tempo – faster drawing and firing if you time it well • Scatter Caps – gives arrows shotgun spread properties The Olympus map is also getting upgraded; “a vessel named The Icarus has docked on Olympus, bringing with it a parasitic plant of unknown origin,” which makes it sound a lot like something Zombies-inspired from Warzone may spread across the map in due course. You can also find keycards on the bodies of fallen scientists that allow you to raid caches on The Icarus that are brimming with good loot. “Additional changes to Olympus including reduced redeploy balloons have been made to avoid ’third-party’ issues and encourage new rotations” as per Respawn. VG247’s Dorrani has had a chance to play the Season, and has shared his thoughts with us on what to expect from Respawn’s latest update to the perennial battle royale. “The new season is going to be a banger for sure,” he says. “It’s game-changing in all the right ways. EA and Respawn were kind enough to let some press and content creators playtest it last week and let me tell you for free this is a step in the right direction for Apex Legends, the new Arena game mode is a breath of fresh air from some of the stresses the traditional battle royale game mode brings on and the economy system definitely scratches the Valorant and CS:GO itch I get from time to time. “It’s fast, fun and most importantly there are no third parties to ruin your fights. Valkyrie is going to be a hit for certain and I think she might even hit too hard on release but time will tell. Her jetpack felt a little clunky on first use but you get used to it but the real sauce is her ultimate! Did someone say rotations? “The Bocek bow might need some tuning because it does serious damage but I assume it feels OP because I was playing against a bunch or press who play with their feet. Anyway, I’m buzzing for it. Roll on the 4th of May!” Apex Legends: Legacy will launch on May 4 for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Origin and Steam.
