Apex Legends Season 4 is officially here after weeks of build up from Respawn Entertainment. As with every season, Season 4 brings with it a slew of sweeping changes to shake up the game's meta a bit. Last season brought a brand new map, the new Legend Crypto, and the Charge Rifle sniper.
Season 4 also brings some major changes. From the new Legend Revenant to the powerhouse Sentinel sniper rifle, here are all the major changes that players can expect when diving back into World's Edge this season.
New Legend: Revenant
Revenant is the new face in town, after many twists, turns, and redirects regarding the originally-announced Legend Forge. This Nightmare Simulacrum brings a unique and surprisingly support-focused ability kit that really shakes up standard combat encounters. Revenant's Passive ability Stalker allows him to move faster when crouched and scale walls higher than every other Legend, making him perfect for reaching advantageous positions in the middle of a gunfight. Silence is Revenant's tactical ability, which disables enemy abilities if they are in the area where Revenant threw his device. Lastly, his Ultimate ability is the Death Totem, where Revenant places a totem on the ground which can be interacted with (by teammates AND enemies), and interacting with the Totem turns players into Shadows. While in Shadow form, player will only take health damage (ignoring shields) and when dropped to 0 health, they will be transported back to the Totem with 1 HP instead of being knocked or killed.
Revenant's playstyle is certainly unique compared to the other characters in Apex Legends. His tactical certainly helps give his team an upper hand if attacking a team that is holding a position well, and his Death Totem is perhaps the most interesting part of his kit. It allows players to gamble with life a bit, essentially giving them two chances to rush an enemy. This lends itself very well to guns that are designed to rush enemies, like the newly tuned L-Star LMG.
One member of a team can dive in, deal a good amount of damage and then "die" then the other teammates can rush in while the first heals back up. With it being early in the season still, it's perhaps too soon to say if Revenant will have a place in the current meta, but only time will tell.
Gun Changes: New Gun, Ammo Type, and Balancing
Season 4' new weapon is the Sentinel Sniper Rifle. This powerful bolt-action sniper deals impressive damage using the new Sniper Ammo type but also features a unique charge mechanic. Players can expend one Shield Battery to supercharge the Sentinel, giving it six Disruptor rounds that deal bonus damage to shields. The mechanic is interesting and certainly helpful for players who don't reliably hit headshots, but the Sentinel's base damage can break shields easily if landing a critical hit.
The Disruptor damage can break shields in one shot even when hitting a body or leg shot, so there is definitely some use for it. But even with Disruptor rounds, the gun still deals 65 damage to body shots on unshielded enemies so it does not gain any boost there.
Among the lengthy Apex Legends Season 4 patch notes are many changes to weapons in the game currently. The biggest change comes in the form of the Devotion, which is now a Care Package weapon that will now perform as if it has the Turbocharger hop up (which was also removed with this update). The L-Star is no longer a Care Package weapon, and it now features an endless magazine meaning players do not have to reload it (so long as they manage the gun's heat-up mechanic well). The G7-Scout was also re-categorized as an Assault Rifle, no longer a Sniper, and it now takes Assault Rifle attachments. Other weapons received some small value changes, but none quite as substantial as these.
Map Changes to World's Edge
Players are returning to World's Edge this season, but the map has received some pretty substantial changes. The Apex Legends Season 4 trailer showcased a fair number of locations that would be updated, including Fuel Depot and Capitol City. Fuel Depot no longer exists, but is instead now replaced by the massive Harvester that fell from the sky.
The Harvester is filled with good loot and is currently one of the most popular places to land this season. Capitol City has been split apart due to the Harvester's landing, and has several lava-filled ravines that players can fall into. However, falling in these does not mean death thanks to the updrafts that will lift players back up at the cost of a little damage.
There is also a new location between Epicenter and Skyhook called Survey Camp which features gun racks so players can find guaranteed weapons. For those that were worried about it being gone, Mirage Voyage is still there and just as fantastic as ever. Season 4 also features a Seasonal Ranked Split which occurs at the mid-point of the season. At the split, the Ranked playlist will no longer be playing on World's Edge, but instead on the returning King's Canyon map.
Changes to Ranked
Ranked is receiving a bit of an overhaul in Season 4. First and foremost, there is a brand new Ranked Tier called Master Tier, which effectively replaced the previous Apex Predator Tier. However, Apex Predator is still a part of ranked, but it is now reserved for the Top 500 players on each platform. Players in that tier will have to constantly play to ensure that they stay in the Apex Predator tier.
Matchmaking is also working a bit differently this time around, where premade squads have to be within one tier of each other to play together in Diamond tier or higher, meaning Predators or Masters can no longer carry Bronze or Silver players up in the ranks. As mentioned before, this Season features a Ranked Split. The first split runs from now until March 23, then a soft rank reset occurs and players in Ranked will be playing on King's Canyon until May 5.
Season 4 of Apex Legends is off to a strong start and is shaping up to be one of the best season yet. While it doesn't fix all of the issues in Apex Legends, it does get the ball rolling on several major complaints players have. Perhaps some more changes will be coming with the ranked split on March 24, but for now players have plenty of new content to explore on World's Edge.
Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.