Apex Legends: Resurrection – Revenant is Reborn

Apex Legends is heading into its fourth year, and in so doing it will be, for the first time, completely reworking one of its characters. In a meeting with press and influencers, a handful of Apex Legends developers took the time to share the details surrounding Apex Legends: Resurrection and what lies in store for gamers in the game’s 18th Season.

Normally when a new season drops, certain characters will receive small quality of life changes. More often than not, there is also an addition of a new legend or weapon. Given how season 17 arrived with the addition of Ballistic, the developers sought to do something different for the newest season. This time around, Apex Legends: Resurrection is going to completely reboot the Season 4 introduced skin suit aficionado, Revenant.

---

Caleb Cross

Revenant is a 359 year old ‘synthetic nightmare’, a simulacrum who used to be a human hitman known was Caleb Cross, and who worked for the Mercenary Syndicate. He was originally programmed to forget his past, but when his memory returned, he became obsessed with finding and destroying his human head – the only thing keeping him “alive”. He subsequently killed Forge, taking his place in the ‘games’, and became a mortal enemy of Loba (killing her parents).

Fans of the game will be familiar with the recent Apex Legends: Kill Code series. These lore based videos have been slowly offering juicy new details of how the game’s current big bad, Eduardo Silva, seemingly has new plans for Caleb’s deadly mechanical body. Although what these plans entail continues to remain in the shadows, whilst the way they influence Revenant has been brought to light.

With the above in mind, Revenant is always portrayed as a ruthless and terrifying assassin who, up to this point, can silence his enemies, stalk them with ease, and cheat death with his totem. Three years after he was introduced to the game, his kit remains largely unchanged – save for a new wall climbing ability. Furthermore, his interesting past is often overshadowed by his unchanged gameplay – which is also at odds with how ‘nightmarish‘ he is supposed to be. Hence why the Apex Legends developers felt now was a good time to rework this beloved character for Apex Legends: Resurrection.

---

Revenant Reborn

In a bid to assist with Revenant’s declining pick rate, and to simply bring the character more inline with the movement and mobility Apex Legends characters have become well known for, Revenant is being ‘reborn’ for Season 18. In this way, the character will embrace his “villain era” and, according to the developers, is going to be much more sinister and darker than ever before.

Better still, Revenant will be unlocked for all players all season-long, and gamers can complete a set of challenges before the season ends to unlock Revenant permanently.

Evan Funnel, Apex Legends Game Designer, says the rework aims to revise Revenant’s abilities to make him feel ‘new’ whilst bringing him more inline with his nightmarish lore. As such, Respawn wants gamers to feel like they are dropping into a far more sinister character, ensuring he exudes the fear factor the lore portrays (especially on enemy opponents). Consequently, the rework encourages Revenant to be more of a “push first, ask questions later” assault class styled character.

The following changes to Revenant will be present once Apex Legends: Resurrection arrives.

• • Assassin’s Instinct [passive]: faster crouch and better wall climbing (now also works horizontally with better grips for falls), whilst his “sharpened senses” help him see low-health enemies, and if he lowers the health of enemies himself they will be marked for the entire team – not a wall hack, but more inline with Mad Maggie’s Warlord’s Ire. Any enemy with 40 or less health, and within a close radius of Revenant, will be shown.
• • Shadow Pounce [tactical]: Revenant can close the gap to his prey from a distance by leaping forward. Allows for reaching high walls to climb or simply to reposition. Can also be charged for even shorter/further leaps. Max charge should result in about a 50 metre pounce.
• • Forged Shadows [ultimate]: allows Revenant to form a shroud of ‘hardened shadows’ around him, blocking up to 75 damage before breaking. It does regenerate, and will form again as long as it is active. He is vulnerable when this extra shield is down, but if he manages a knock whilst it is active, it will be immediately replenished. Knocks also refresh his tactical charge.

---

Other Legend Changes

As previously mentioned, every season normally brings along one or two smaller changes for currently available legends. This remains true for Apex Legends: Resurrection, with the following coming to the game:

• • Seer – Tactical duration reduced, while cast time increased. Slow time when hit will also be reduced from 2.5s to 0.5s.
• • Balistic – developers are happy with him for now, but will be making small changes to his Tactical. As such, the overheat will be a little more ‘lenient’ to allow opposing players to react.
• • Ultimate cooldown times are being modified across the board. Examples include Bangalore’s increasing by 60 seconds, and Gibraltar’s decreasing by 90 seconds. More details will be released in the patch notes.

---

Weapons Changes

The biggest weapons changes in Apex Legends: Resurrection are for the infamous Charge Rifle. These changes include:

• • Removal of ‘hit scan’
• • Now projectile based with bullet drop
• • Removing pre-beam lazer
• • Gun has been completely retuned as a result (reloading, handling etc)
• • Firing mechanism changed to include charging of projectile
• • Magazines reintroduced
• • Reduced ammo to one (1)

According to Eric Canavese, Lead Weapons Designer, the reason for the changes to this particular weapon are because of the “unintentional gameplay loops” gamers were exploiting. In so doing, it has been negatively influencing the meta and the team did not see a means around the issues without a complete rework of the popular ‘sniper rifle’.

With that said, the weapon remains one of the most effective long range snipers currently available. To this point, the Charge Rifle now deals more damage the further away a target may be.

Other changes in Apex Legends: Resurrection to assist with bettering the meta and ensuring the game remains balanced and consistent include:

• • Prowler back in the Care Package with select fire – allowing it to be fully automatic
• • Hemlock returns to the floor with a damage and recoil buff
• • R99 gets a few nerfs with less ammo in each mag and more vertical recoil
• • All SMG’s are getting reduced strafe speeds and reductions to headshot multipliers
• • Mastiff gets a tighter blast pattern
• • Disruptor rounds are coming back for the Alternator and the Peacekeeper
• • No scheduled changes to the Nemesis

Additional weapons changes can be found in the offical patch notes for the season.

---

Ranked Changes

Apex Legends: Resurrection‘s Ranked Season brings multiple updates to refine tuning and stability. Core of which will be a focus on the recent “ratting to Masters” meta, where the new season will not be as forgiving, nor will it reward those who do not engage in meaningful combat.

Additional changes include adjusting ring damage and timing to decrease pre-finale lulls, adding a minimum elimination bonus increase based on the player’s MMR and buffing elimination bonus.

The latest Ranked updates will also slow the pace to Masters for the average player and allow for more accurate matchmaking and higher quality matches – especially at Diamond+ ranks.

Dive trails are also being removed in order to curb some toxic behaviour in the playerbase – specifically where people target higher ranking players. Instead, new banner frames will be awarded to players who reach the relevant ranked tiers and badges will default to their animated counterparts. As always, ranked rewards are only distributed at the end of a season.

Please see here for an in-depth look at the Ranked Changes coming to Apex Legends: Resurrection.

---

Mixtape comes to Broken Moon

Broken Moon, the newest map, is getting added to Mixtape in Apex Legends: Resurrection. Gamers will be able to Jump into Gun Run and Team Deathmatch in The Core, which sees a slight increase in size, as well as enhancements to zip-line availability – to enhance rotations – and the opening of sight lines to promote additional styles of play.

Control, on the other hand, takes place in Production Yard with the focus being on, as Design Director Evan Nikolich so poignantly puts it, “[a] frenetic and intense close quarters combat experience”. The rationale is to ensure Mixtape remains exciting and challenging for all players.

---

As with each new season, there will also be a corresponding collection event. For Season 18, it is the Death Dynasty Collection Event. During the event, players earn double XP in Battle Royale from 8 – 15 August 2023 and in Mixtape from 15 – 22 August 2023. There are 24 limited-time themed cosmetics to collect and additional items to earn on the rewards track. Gamers who manage to unlock all 24 cosmetics before the event ends will automatically receive Revenant’s new “Death Grip” Heirloom.

As far as new seasons go, Apex Legends: Resurrection certainly appears to be hitting many of the points players have been asking for, especially in terms of ranked and ratting. The addition of a Revenant rework is simply the cherry on the top of what will hopefully be quite a good season for the game.

Gamers interested in jumping back into the battle-Royale can embody the essence of death from the 8th of August 2023, when Apex Legends: Resurrection releases.