Season 8 of Apex Legends has now arrived with hordes of new content including a brand-new gun-wielding legend, a trenchant new gun, and updates to the Kings Canyon map. Here is a quick breakdown of all the new content descending onto Apex Legends. The new update is just shy of 25GB on PlayStation 4, so be prepared for the new update to take a while to download.
Firstly, we have a brand-new legend called Walter “Fuse” Fitzroy. He is a mercenary turned cage fighter who is always up for a good-old-scrap. Fuse is an explosives enthusiast who uses his mechanical arm which he affectionally calls “Wally” to toss additional grenades at foes for quicker and wider range. If you want to see how Fuse lost his arm, the latest instalment of Stories from the Outlands – “Good as Gold” explores his past in detail.
Our new legend is even equipped with a stack of extra grenade per inventory slot. He can also use “Wally” to blast-off a bombardment that can enclose the surrounding area in a circle of fire. If you want to see Fuse in action before jumping into a game, you can watch Meet Fuse – Apex Legends Character Trailer to see his abilities first-hand.
The new weapon which has bee added is called the 30-30 Repeater. It is a heavy ammo lever which is an action repeater. The 30-30 Repeater rifle is intended to endure the harsh apex environments. However, this gun will take a lot of discipline and punishment to truly master as it requires the user to rechamber the rounds between shots. Additionally, the rifle has a built-in charge giving the user the opening to deal increased damage with each shot at the cost of a short build-up. The key to this rifle is resource management. The 30-30 Repeater’s enormous range allows the potential to reload individual rounds between shots. It can have a steady and dependable, accurate range of fire, where other weapons with full reload can have great trouble.
As mentioned before, Kings Canyon itself has had several alterations. Kings Canyons has endured massive wreckage from a ship colliding into the map. This has now enabled users to explore beyond the Artillery, the Spotted Lakes has now replaced the Slums, and there are even new observation towers to explore. If you want to see the events that lead to the ship crashing into Kings Canyon, be sure to check out Apex Legends Season 8 – Mayhem Launch Trailer.
There many new changes heading to Season 8 including buffs, nerfs and bug fixtures, that we will list down below with the patch notes. Although, the introduction of the Gold-tier magazines seems the early standout. Fastening it to a weapon automatically reloads the stored weapon after a tiny delay, that is sure to come in handy.
Apex Legends Season 8 Patch Notes:
New Legend: Fuse
Meet Fuse: a mercenary-turned-cage fighter who never turns down a good dust-up. His affinity for explosions allows him to carry extra grenades and to throw them faster and further. He can launch a cluster bomb with airburst explosives. And when it’s time to really bring the boom, Fuse uses “Wally” to launch a bombardment that encircles an area in a ring of flames.
Passive – Grenadier
Stack an extra grenade per inventory slot. Fire grenades farther, faster, and more accurately.
Tactical – Knuckle Cluster
Launch a cluster bomb that continuously expels airburst explosives on impact.
Ultimate – The Motherlode
Launch a bombardment that encircles a target area in a wall of flames.
New Weapon: 30-30 Repeater
This heavy ammo lever-action repeater boasts hard-hitting rounds that’ll nail a fleeing Mirage at 200 paces.
The 30-30 is the benchmark for reliability, designed to withstand whipping sandstorms and temporal instability, which made it an obvious choice for the Apex Games.
DISCIPLINED TRIGGER FINGER
The 30-30 Repeater requires the user to rechamber their rounds between shots which brings a methodic rhythm to the rifle, an analogue elegance that the modern weapons of the Outlands just can’t quite capture.
To further tempt those itchy trigger fingers, the 30-30 Repeater has a built-in charge giving players an opportunity to deal increased damage with each shot at the cost of a short build-up.
The 30-30 reloads one round at a time, which makes for some very interesting resource management you won’t find anywhere else, even on the Mastiff.
The 30-30’s engagement range allows unique opportunities to reload individual rounds between shots. This gives the Repeater the ability to lay down consistent precision ranged pressure, something weapons with full reloads can sometimes struggle with.
Kings Canyon Map Update
Season 8 once again sees changes to Kings Canyon. The main new point of interest shows the devastation from the ship crashing into the map. Players can now explore beyond Artillery, Spotted Lakes takes over the Slums and some new observation towers for basic recon or a sniper’s nest. Read more on the map changes in the map blog here.
Legendary Magazines
Season 8 introduces the Gold-tier magazines. Attaching it to a weapon automatically reloads your stowed weapons after a brief delay. The Gold magazine has the same capacity as Purple mags, and is available for Light, Heavy, Snipers, and Energy Weapons.
Quality of Life Updates
Damage counter
- We have now added a damage counter to the HUD. This was a highly requested feature, so we’re excited to allow people easier tracking for chasing those badges and challenges!
Pinging Ammo
- Pinging weapons or ammo in your inventory displays your current ammo count along with “player wants ammo” in quick chat.
Color Blind update
- Healing and reviving will now follow colorblind rules when colorblind settings are enabled
Lore Blurbs on Canon Skins
- Some of our skins are canon, and some are just for fun. For the skins that represent an important part of that character’s backstory, we’ve added a small blurb to describe the significance of that skin in the Legend’s life.
Legend Meta
Wraith:
- Hitbox adjustments.
Dev Note:
We know Wraith will always be a popular pick considering the amount of combat utility in her kit. After many tweaks to her abilities and animations, the fact remains that her win rate continues to be at the very top as it has since day one. With Season 7 hitbox adjustments to Pathfinder, we were able to control his power without nerfing his kit. We hope to do the same with Wraith.
Wraith now has a slightly larger hitbox than her fellow small legends, but the changes stay true to her model. As you can see in the before and after comparison, we’re adding some width mostly in the torso and leg areas:
Even with these changes, Wraith remains small and hard to hit. She will retain Low Profile as we monitor her usage and win rates to see if power can be given back in other ways in the future.
Rampart:
- Sheila angle increase from 120° to 180°
- Wall health in build phase increased from 1hp to 45hp (sniper rounds still pierce through)
Dev Note:
Rampart has remained at the bottom across our performance metrics since her release. Her kit is very much built around proactively setting up a powerful position, but in a game as fast-moving as Apex, we determined her walls should have some reactive power as well. We’re keeping a careful eye on this one.
Horizon:
- Gravity Lift effective cooldown increased from 21s to 25s. The 15s cooldown timer will now start when the Gravity Lift disappears.
Dev Note:
Horizon released strong, to the point where she rivals Wraith in win rate and pick rate. For the time being, we are monitoring her usage and checking whether or not the cooldown changes have a significant effect.
Octane:
Launch Pad Remastered: Many players may have known about Octane’s “super-jump” that was possible with a well-timed jump while hitting the pad. Once the double-jump option was introduced, there was an input clash that led to unreliable usage. We decided to add some launch options that are better defined than the old super-jump.
- Hitting the jump pad from a standing position will launch players along a high arc (the speed and trajectory of the old super-jump).
- From a crouched position, players will launch along a low arc, meaning they’ll fly lower but farther in the horizontal direction.
Crypto:
- Remove ability to stick arc stars to friendly drones.
Loba:
- Loot inside unopened care packages is now visible with Eye for Quality and accessible through the Black Market Boutique.
Caustic:
- All gas now dissipates as soon as Caustic’s team is eliminated.
Mirage:
- Mirage decoys create footstep sounds.
- Dev Note:
- This change was mistakenly mentioned in the Fight Night patch notes when it was in fact coming with this patch. Mirage decoys will now have footstep audio in a limited capacity. There won’t be a footstep tornado if an enemy Mirage ults nearby, but it should be slightly harder to pick out the real Mirage from audio cues alone.
Weapon Meta
Fully Kitted Rotation
- Removed: Wingman, Sentinel, Havoc, G7, Alternator
- Added: R-301, 30-30 Repeater, Mozambique, Longbow DMR, Spitfire
Attachments
- We are removing the Gold Barrel from the loot pool
Hop Ups
- The Double Tap hop up will be removed from the loot pool
- The Anvil Rounds hop up will be added into the loot pool
Volt
- Bullet damage decreased from 16 to 15
Alternator
- Bullet damage increased from 15 to 16
Spitfire
- Bullet damage increased from 18 to 19
- Reload speed increased from 2.8 seconds to 3.2
- Empty Reload speed increased from 3.33 seconds to 3.8
EVA 8
- Fire rate increased from 2.0 to 2.1
Bug Fixes
Caustic
- Sonar abilities no longer stop Caustic’s highlight vision.
Loba
- Fixed a few exploitable areas on Kings Canyon that Loba was able to reach via her Bracelet.
Rampart
- Jumpads in Octane’s town takeover no longer allow Rampart to place Sheila on them.
- Fixed an issue with Rampart’s passive persisting even after changing characters in Firing Range
Havoc
- Fixed an issue causing the Havoc to have 100% accuracy when hip-fired through Rampart’s Amped Cover.
Peacekeeper
- Fixed a POV issue that occurred when using Horizon’s abilities, then immediately going into ADS with a Peacekeeper.
Clubs
- Re-enabled ability to invite friends to club from friends list
- Fixed an issue causing some users who have opted out of “Last Squad Invites” to not appear in club event timelines when placing in the top 5 of a match
- Failing to connect to the club database no longer leads to a misleading “Kicked from club” message
- Players will no longer be kicked from clubs when switching to another profile on Xbox.
MISC
- Fixed an issue with crowds not cheering in Pathfinder’s Town takeover.
- Fixed an issue preventing some heirlooms from appearing in the heirloom shop.
- Fixed an issue that allowed Thermites to deal damage through certain walls on Olympus.
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