Apex Legends is beginning Season 6 on the 18th August and as expected brings a number of hefty changes.
A new legend, weapon, major map changes headline the update, while other subtle changes like a buff to the Season 5 headline legend Loba are also coming.
There's a lot of changes that can change the face of the game - here's what's new in Season 6.
Apex Legends Season 6 Patch Notes
The new update arrives at 6am BST on the 18th August - click here for the full list of regional release times.
The update is 10.32GB on PC (some players are receiving a 41.63GB update as the game needs space to decompress).
The new update is 41.3GB on Xbox One and 23.16GB on PS4.
Here are the official patch notes:
Rampart New Legend
Rampart has been confirmed as the new legend to come to the Apex games.
Rampart is a private business owner who just needs a big gun and a backpack full of scrap metal to get by in the dangerous, wild west world of the Outlands
Ramya Parekh (Rampart for short) made a name for herself in the underground gauntlet circuit before opening her shop on Gaea.
Now she's entering Apex Legends to show off just how skilful she is.
Rampart's latest trailer has given us the opportunity to get a closer look at some of the special moves that players will be able to use with Rampart:
- Amped Cover - A deployable shield that players are able to shoot one way though, but not take damage in reverse
- Modded Loader - It is unknown/hard to decipher what this ability exactly is! When we know more details we will be sure to update
- Emplaced Minigun - As the name suggests this is a minigun that Rampart can deploy and use on enemies
Read More: Apex Legends Season 6 New Legend: Rampart, Story, Abilities, Trailers And More
READY FOR A SCRAP: Rampart will use her cunning modding abilities to change the face of Apex
New VOLT Weapon
The VOLT is a fan favourite and was speculated to arrive much earlier. It's a submachine gun that was first introduced in Titanfall 2.
It was confirmed in the Boosted Gameplay trailer that it will be coming to Season 6.
It's a bit different from a normal SMG as it uses energy ammo rather than normal bullets.
Read More: Apex Legends Season 6: New Weapon, Titanfall Volt SMG
VOLT WHO GOES THERE: Titanfall 2's famous SMG returns
World's Edge Map Changes
Currently, it seems there won't be a new map in Season 6, but there will be map changes.
World's Edge will become World's Edge Fortified, take a look at what was shown in the Boosted Gameplay trailer.
Here are the confirmed changes:
- Launch Site - is getting an ample amount of changes this season
- Drill Site - one of the former locations last season has now been replaced in the form of an area called Countdown
- Staging - one of the smaller POIs that has been added this season and is located in one of the busiest areas of the map
- Rising Blast Walls - these new massive walls are also an addition around the map this season
- Survey Camp - A new path has been cut out east of the Survey Camp
- Train - the Train that has been circulating the Apex map for quite some time now has been stopped and its pieces lay all over the map.
Read More: Apex Legends Season 6: All Map Changes For The New Season! World's Edge and More
Legend Changes
All Recon legends (Bloodhound, Crypto, and Pathfinder) can now use Survey Beacons to get the next ring location. Crypto can use his drone to instantly get this information.
Pathfinder:
- Context: Giving all Recon legends access to survey beacons makes Pathfinder less unique, and obviously we don’t love that. For now, we’re giving our friendly robot a small buff to his ultimate cooldown when he uses a survey beacon, but in the future we will take another look at Pathfinder to see what else we could do to make him feel more unique.
- Passive: Each time Pathfinder scans a survey beacon, the total cooldown of Zipline Gun is reduced.
- Numbers: Zipline Gun cooldown reduced by 10s each time Pathfinder scans a beacon. Up to 6 rings per game means the total cooldown of Zipline Gun can go from 120s to 60s.
Bloodhound:
- Context: Bloodhound fulfills a very clear role in Apex Legends: they’re the information gatherer and tracker, but currently their performance leaves a lot to be desired. In this patch, we wanted to double down on their ultimate being their big moment of becoming a god-like tracker. Bloodhound already gives up some information to the enemy when they scan or use the ultimate (it makes a noticeable sound), so we think there is room for a lot more power during the ultimate.
- Beast of the Hunt: Now gains even more duration when Bloodhound scores a knockdown or kill with the ultimate about to run out.
- Eye of the Allfather: During Beast of the Hunt, Eye of the Allfather now comes out twice as fast and has a much shorter cooldown.
- Numbers: Beast of the Hunt duration extension 5s → [5s - 15s] based on remaining duration
- Eye of the Allfather CD during Beast of the Hunt: 25s → 6s
- Eye of the Allfather total use time during Beast of the Hunt: 1.8s → 0.9s
Crypto:
- Context: Crypto is a particularly interesting recon character: the amount of information he can gather for his team with the drone is very high, but the fact that he has to switch over to his drone leaves him vulnerable and often at a great distance from his team. Because he has no abilities without his drone, we figure there’s room for even more power when he’s in his drone.
- Surveillance drone: Crypto can now activate respawn and survey beacons from his drone. Doing so is instant instead of requiring a prolonged use. Made the surveillance drone slightly more consistent to hit but also doubled its hitpoints.
- Drone EMP: EMP will now slow teammates caught in the blast, even if they had no shields. This means that players who have used Revenant’s Death Totem will also be slowed.
- Numbers: Surveillance Drone 30HP → 60HP
- Surveillance Drone hitbox size: cube of edge length 16 → cube of edge length 24
Revenant
- Context: We’re happy to see that dropping the range restriction on Death Totem brought a lot more Revenants into play, but we’ve been watching a particularly frustrating combo play out in professional-level play involving a squad of Revenant, Wraith, and Crypto, where using the three ultimates together resulted in two back to back runs at the enemy team that they could do very little about. We’ve attacked part of that in the Crypto EMP change, but here’s the other part aimed at making this play less overwhelming.
- Death Totem: For 2s after being recalled by the Death Totem, players cannot use Wraith’s Dimensional Rift.
Octane:
- Stim: Can now use Stim while healing, but stim will not remove the slow you incur from healing.
Loba:
- Context: While Loba was initially very popular, she’s been struggling to keep up more recently, so we’re tossing her a little buff. If you’re curious why we’ve chosen to buff her ultimate rather than her tactical: we’re seeing that she has decent combat success but that teams with her on them don’t win as much as, say, teams with Lifeline or Wattson. This suggests to us that her out of combat utility (that is to say, how she funnels loot to her team) isn’t doing enough.
- Black Market: Lowered cooldown from 3min to 90s
Gibraltar:
- Defensive Bombardment: Increased cooldown from 3 minutes to 4.5 minutes
Bangalore:
- Rolling Thunder: Decreased cooldown from 4.5 minutes to 3 minutes
Wattson:
- Interception Pylon: Trophy system will now shoot down Caustic barrels in flight if they would have landed inside the range of the trophy.
Read More: Apex Legends Season 6: Respawn Confirms Loba Will Be Buffed
Loot Changes
Added:
- Extended Energy Mags.
- Turbocharger Hop-up
Updated:
- Precision Choke - Removed Precision Choke from loot pool, but it will now be integrated into the Triple Take and Peacekeeper by default. Fire select toggles on/off the choke
In Supply Drop:
- R99Damage increased from 11 to 12
- Increased magazine size to 32
- Ammo Reserve: 160
Out of Supply Drop- Into Ground Loot:
- Devotion Clip size reduced back to original values (36/40/44/48).
Fully Kitted Swaps
Removed:
- DMR
- Hemlok
- Spitfire
- EVA-8
- RE-45
Added:
- Devotion
- Mastiff
- Triple Take
- Flatline
- Volt
Updated Loot
Sniper ammo:
- Increased pick up from 8 to 12
- Increased Stack Size from 16 to 24
Energy Ammo:
- Reduce the amount picked up from 30 to 20.
Weapon Changes
Hemlok:
- Reduced vertical recoil in burst mod
- Slightly reducing recoil in pattern on 2nd and 3rd shot so first burst kicks less
- Burst mode time between bursts .32 -> .28
Charge Rifle:
- Will now use 2 ammo per shot.
- Increased mag size from 4 to 8
Triple Take Buff:
- Increase fire rate 1.25 -> 1.4
- Increased Mag size from (5/6/7/8) to (6/7/8/9)
- Built the Choke hop up into the weapon by default. Toggle select-fire to enable/disable the Choke
PK:
- Built the Choke hop up into the weapon by default. Toggle select-fire to enable/disable the Choke
Spitfire:
- Improve recoil controllability
Havoc:
- Updated Havoc with a new recoil pattern
- Designer Note: The Havoc's existing recoil pattern had constant horizontal movement. This means it would either be too difficult to control if there was too much recoil, or far too easy to control if there was too little recoil.
- Updating to a new pattern which is more consistent in style with existing recoil patterns.
Mozambique:
- Increased clip size from 3 to 4.
P2020:
- Increased Damage from 13 to 15
- Decreased Hammerpoint damage multiplier from 2.7 to 2.35. This will leave Hammerpoint P2020 damage unchanged in most scenarios..
- Increased mag size from (10/13/15/18) to (12/14/16/18)
Sentinel:
- Only requires one shield cell to charge if the player has the gold armor.
Prowler:
- Slightly Reduce vertical recoil in burst mode
- Increase horizontal recoil in Auto Mode
New Crafting System
"Don't like your gear? Collect materials around the map and build something better!"
This allows them to essentially build weapons on the fly, but also new items, too.
As you can see from the screenshot, there's a weapon, attachment, and healing and shield items up for grabs, each with a varying material cost.
Some even suggest that they are part of a daily or weekly rotation.
Presumably, players will be at risk of being attacked while using the replicator, so while there are three control panels on it, it might be worth someone keeping guard.
I dropped out of Apex Legends at around Season 2, but with the game coming to Steam and Switch, and offering cross-play in the coming months, I'm very tempted to jump back in.
Read More: Apex Legends Season 6 Crafting System: Everything We Know About Gear Upgrades So Far
Armor Meta
With Season 6, we're introducing some big changes to the way armor works in the game.
First off, all armor in the game is Evo Armor (except the Gold Armor).
When you find a white, blue or purple armor on the ground, it's a pre-levelled Evo Armor. It can be picked up like normal, and continue to be evolved. Red Armor is not in the ground loot and can only be achieved through evolving.
Gold Armor is not part of the Evo Armor track and is only found in rare locations as usual.
Another interesting change is that players spawn with level 0 Evo Armor. If you get in gunfights right away and do enough damage, you will automatically level up into a White Armor. And you can continue to take that all the way to Red.
We think this will really help with loot availability in the early game, without requiring players to drop hot when they don't want to.
With all the changes in Season 6, players now have the opportunity to level up their shields through damage, luck in ground loot, or through crafting!
The last big differences is that all Armor is coming down by 25 health. This means, players with Purple and Gold Armor have 175 health, not 200. Red Armor gets you to 200 health, and you can no longer get to 225.
Our goal for this is to bring down the TTK (time to kill) a bit in order to better reward strategic positioning.
New Damage Requirements:
- Damage to white: 50
- Damage to blue: 125
- Damage to purple: 250
- Damage to red: 500
Holo Sprays
Holo sprays are a new way to emote in the arena. By using the Emote wheel, you can throw down these legend specific calling cards to taunt bested enemies, or warn future challengers that you're not to be messed with.
New Battle Pass
A new battle pass will be added to Apex Legends in Season 6.
Players will be offered a free battle pass or can buy the premium one for 950 Apex Coins.
Players can opt to spend 2800 Apex Coins to unlock an additional 25 levels to jump-start the new season.
As always, over 100 items are available across 110 levels.
Quest
Follow the story from the Season 5 Quest, now in full colour, illustrated comics!
Collect Treasure Packs daily to earn your rewards including Crafting Metals, Challenge Points, Apex Packs, and a whole new suite of Gun Charms.
Quality Of Life Changes And Bug Fixes
QUALITY OF LIFE
- Supply Drop Weapons are now Heirloom Tier (red) to avoid confusion with fully kitted guns which will remain gold.
- World’s Edge received performance improvements, especially around The Tree, The Dome and Skyhook, looking towards the centre of the map.
- Alterations were made to The Ring to prevent late zones from centring on unplayable terrain and reduce the predictability of the zone’s “pull.”
BUG FIXES
- Bangalore
- Fixed an issue with the La Catrina and Killing Machine skins obscuring views when ADS with the holo, 2x, 2-4x or 3x scopes.
- Fixed an exploit with being able to see through the smoke when looking through a chain-link fence.
- Bloodhound
- Fixed an issue with bloodhound being able to get an additional Ult when using a wraith ultimate.
- Caustic
- Fixed an issue with gas traps clipping into mobile Respawn beacons.
- Fixed an issue with Revenant and Pathfinder taking less damage from Nox Gas
- Crypto
- Fixed an issue VFX show false positive when hitting Crypto’s Drone.
- Fixed an issue with Crypto being able to use his drone while using Loba’s Black Market.
- Fixed an issue with EMP not destroying Loba’s Black Market.
- Did a geo pass to help prevent Crypto’s drone from clipping into walls
- Gibraltar
- Fixed an issue Gibraltar air strike markers sometimes appearing inside buildings.
- Loba
- Fixed an issue with Loba’s Black market not being pingable.
- Fixed an issue with enemies getting teleported with Loba when they melee her when she teleports.
- Mirage
- Fixed an issue with decoy flying rapidly across the ground when player takes control of it before a jump tower or geyser.
- Fixed an issue with decoys not looking natural when player uses a zipline
- Fixed and issue with Decoys getting launched into air while player enters Wraith’s Portal.
- Fixed bug where Mirage’s decoys would sometimes not deploy while skydiving
- Octane
- Fixed an issue with jump pads disappearing when placed on ordinances
- Fixed an issue with jump pads disappearing when placed under loot ticks.
- Pathfinder
- Hi Friend!
- Revenant
- Fixed an issue with enemies getting teleported with Revenant when they melee him before he teleports back to death totem.
- Wraith
- Fixed an issue with wraith portals pushing players beneath geo when a death box is on the other end
- Fixed an issue with Wraith’s tactical losing velocity when pressing the fire button during the tactical.
- Fixed an issue for when a death totem and portal are too close to each other causing players to auto enter a portal upon death totem recall.
- General
- Fixed an issue with evo armor doubling the effect of leveling up. This caused some brightness on screen.
- Fixed an issue with the train killing players when coming out of a wraith portal on the train.
- Fixed an issue with some vertical zip lines not correctly placing players once they get off the line.
- Fixed an issue with spectator view pinging last pings when swapping through views (Private Match Issue).
- Fixed an issue for knockdown state not eliminating the squad when no one had a gold shield.
- Fixed an issue where death protection runs out with an active DOC medic nearby, DOC would not start healing you.