The Apex Legends Anniversary season is coming to a close next week, and players are gearing up to welcome a sinister new legend to the game. Alter is joining the game with Apex Legends Season 21, which launches May 7th, and she’s bringing an updated Broken Moon map, the Solos mode for the players to flaunt their skills, and the ability to customize your heirloom. So, let’s not waste time and dive into the patch notes for Apex Legends Season 21 ‘Upheaval’ right away.
Broken Moon Shatters
Although the community expected a new map to arrive with Season 21, we saw Olympus crash into Broken Moon in the previous season. Hence, we get Broken Moon Shatters, which brings players a streamlined experience with multiple POIs being designed from scratch.
The Olympus impact had the biggest effect on the most harrowing POI, Promenade, which is great. I’ve died in that POI too often while rotating in ranked and truly despise it with a passion. It’s good that Promenade is gone and has been replaced with a massive “Quarantine” zone. This POI adds a variety of new building designs, including space stations and a hazmat tunnel.
Moreover, the ziplines in Quarantine are covered to keep you protected against enemy fire. Other POIs that see change are Backup Atmo, which was nuked and replaced with Breaker Wharf to make the map smaller. The location where Breaker Wharf existed has been reeled in, and it now includes the new Space Port POI.
The middle of the map too has been redesigned, with a smaller Cliff Side POI appearing close to Statis Array. Many open spaces and connecting routes now have smaller POIs such as Underpass and Experimental Labs close to Production Yard and Solar Pods close to Cultivation.
I played a few games on this map during the playtest, and it does feel quite fresh, especially with Promenade not hogging the central space and affecting rotations.
New Skirmisher: Alter
Alongside the map changes, we have a new legend making her grand entrance into the Apex Games. Alter is the 26th legend in Apex Legends, a skirmisher class legend that has void capabilities. Alter’s kit revolves around her void capabilities, allowing her to gather loot, escape enemies, and escape the fights if the going gets tough.
We have a dedicated guide on Alter’s abilities and perks, but here’s a brief look at her kit:
- Passive (Gift from the Rift): Grab one item from death boxes from a distance. It can’t be a shield core, though.
- Tactical (Void Passage): Create a portal through walls and surfaces on maps, giving you a new way to siege buildings or rotate
- Ultimate (Void Nexus): Place a device that you and your teammates can return easily to by opening a one-way portal. Enemies can follow you with this portal, so use it carefully.
Solos Mode in Apex Legends
Respawn was quite adamant about not bringing back Solos mode, which first made its debut in the Iron Crown Collection event in Season 2, to the game ever again. However, the developers seem to have listened to the player’s demands and went back on their word.
Apex Legends Season 21 brings back Solos mode as a limited time takeover. It includes fully-kitted weapons, Respawn tokens, auto-healing, and a new Battle Sense mechanic. You can read about all the new features in Solos mode in detail here.
Weapon & Legend Buffs/ Nerfs
Weapon Balancing
Moving to one of the most important sections, Season 21 brings some jaw-dropping changes to the weapon meta in Apex Legends. Check out the weapon buffs/nerfs here:
- 1x digital threat removed from the game
- This is the biggest change in this patch. The optic, as per Respawn became niche in terms of compatibility with weapons over the past couple of seasons. They even called its design imperfect, hence, deciding to vault it from the loot pool.
- Wingman comes out of the care package
- no longer takes a mag, tampering down on its spam ability
- damage, ballistics, and hipfire have been tuned
- Skullpiercer hop-up removed, Booster Loader added back to the loot pool
- Boosted loader works with Wingman, Hemlok, and Triple Take
- Devotion takes the Wingman’s place in the care package
- Tuned back to care package numbers with lower hipfire spread
- Comes equipped with a Turbocharger and 2x
- Offers 324 bullets; mag size increased to 54
- Longbow has received some buffs
- no longer takes barrel, recoil reduced to match purple barrel
- better handling, ADS in and out time sped up to match sentinel
- can no longer use Skullpiercer
- ballistics improved
Legend Balancing
- Ash Tactical, Arc Snare, is now off-hand. So, you can keep shooting your gun while ensnaring enemies.
- Crypto, Newcastle, Catalyst, Bloodhound, Octane, and some other legends have seen changes to their perks.
Furthermore, one of the changes that every player will appreciate is the ability to swap armor and loot a teammates’ death box without waiting for the banner grab animation to complete.
Customize Apex Artifact
Finally, let’s touch upon another new feature coming to Apex Legends in Season 21, but it’s going to cost you some money.
Respawn, if you remember, introduced a new universal heirloom called Apex Artifact in the current season. The Cobalt Katar arrived as the first Apex Artifact in Season 20 and now, with Season 21, we are getting the ability to customize this heirloom. The game is introducing a new currency, i.e. Exotic Shards, that you can use to unlock the numerous customization options.
The developers tell us that there are more than 200 possible combinations. You can change the base, the theme, and the power source of the Apex Artifact in Season 21. Sounds interesting, right?
Season 20’s ranked revamped efforts seem to have paid off to some extent, and we even saw a mid-season balancing patch to fix some glaring issues. Those changes, i.e. Level 20 entry and only up to three rank difference in parties, will carry forward in Season 21. And no, ranked mode is not getting a leaderboard next season either.
Apart from that, those who have graduated out of the rookie rank will be reset to bronze and don’t need to start afresh. The animated ranked badge can now be earned by climbing back to the same rank as Split 1 or past it. The devs continue to work on other security efforts to reduce the cheater and boosting situation, so stay tuned for more information on that front.
That’s pretty much all the changes the devs discussed with the media during an online press event. We will update this post as and when we get more information, so stay tuned. In the meantime, do tell us your thoughts on Alter and the Broken Moon map update.
