Respawn Entertainment has acknowledged some issues for Apex Legends that have come along with recent updates adding the Chaos Theory event to the battle royale. Along with a new Heirloom for Bangalore, some balance adjustments for various Legends, the Heat Sheild item, and more, Respawn Entertainment made an adjustment to smoke for Bangalore and gas for Caustic. After complaints from fans, it is now looking into those changes.
Following the Chaos Theory update, Apex Legends players realized that Bangalore and Caustic seemed to receive secret nerfs not mentioned in the patch notes. Specifically, the smoke that comes from Bangalore's tactical ability and Cautsic's gas seemed to have lower particle effects, meaning it is much easier to see through them. Instead of extremely low visibility with the gas and smoke, the two mechanics are considerably much less viable.
In a Reddit post, Respawn Entertainment lead game designer Daniel Klein said the team is investigating what exactly happened. The overall explanation is a bit confusing, as apparently, the team made a change with optimization in mind, perhaps to get the Switch version of Apex Legends to be comparable with other versions. However, in doing so something may have gone wrong.
Players are unhappy with the results. Bangalore was once was one of the most balanced and tactical characters in the game thanks to her kit, and the smoke is a huge part of that. If players can easily see through the smoke, it becomes rather pointless. Meanwhile, Caustic's passive is that he can see through his gas. But if anyone can see through gas now thanks to the recent changes, it renders his ability useless.
What makes some of the Apex Legends changes from Respawn Entertainment more confusing is the secrecy of it. Klein admitted ere that there was a change to the VFX of the smoke and gas with the purpose of optimization in mind. However, that did not show up on the patch notes. Respawn Entertainment will often share about its plans, like the idea of dropping the Low Profile perk for Legends in Apex Legends in the future, but nerfing characters without letting fans know is something that can leave a bad taste in the community's mouth. The fact that Klein communicated something here is encouraging, at least, and it will be interesting to see how the team handles this issue moving forward.
Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.