After a lot of teases and reveals in the past few weeks from EA and Respawn Entertainment, Season 13 has finally arrived in Apex Legends. Known as Saviors, this latest season introduces plenty of new content for players including a reworked Ranked system which adds tier demotions, entry cost adjustments, and more. The Storm Point map has also been updated with this release including a new Point of Interest location, a washed up sea creature encounter, as well as a new PvE feature called IMC Armories at four locations around the map.
For many, the biggest addition for Apex Legends Season 13 is the newest roster addition with Newcastle. Revealed to be the brother of Bangalore, Newcastle is a defender style character, capable of protecting his teammates with a mobile shield, dragging downed allies to safety, as well as his ultimate move called the Castle Wall. When activated, Newcastle leaps forward towards an area or ally, slamming down his shield to create a fortified stronghold.
While it may seem imposing, one Apex Legends player has found a very easy counter to Newcastle's Castle Wall ultimate. In a new post on the Apex Legends subReddit, a user known as Car0nix attempted to use Castle Wall when in a firefight with another squad. As Newcastle leaped forward to defend his team, an enemy Horizon use her Black Hole ultimate ability which not only knocked Newcastle out of their animation, but also prevented the Castle Wall from being built at all.
Naturally, this left the team completely exposed and at the mercy of the enemy squad who slowly picked off each member. Many commenters on the Apex Legends post were surprised at this fact, while others commented that with each new Legend that is added, the coding process for developers likely becomes much harder due to considerations that had to be made for how character abilities could interact. One eagle-eyed commenter even suspected that an AI Prowler enemy may have also had an impact with the ultimate getting canceled after colliding with Newcastle and the Black Hole showing up half a second later to fully knock the player completely out of it.
Regardless of what actually happened, Season 13 has proven to be a popular one with fans. Not only has Apex Legends continued to be a major source of income for EA, the launch of Season 13 has broken Apex Legends' previous player record on Steam. Breaking Season 12's record, Apex Legends recently peaked over 410,000 concurrent players with the arrival of Saviors and Newcastle.
Apex Legends is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with a mobile release arriving on May 17.