Most battle royale games have some way of letting players acquire items aside from just finding them lying on the ground, in a chest, or where another player died. Now that Season 6 of Apex Legends has started, players now have another way to fill up their inventory, courtesy of a new crafting system.
Since the marketing for Season 6 focused more on other things like Apex’s newest character, Rampart, there’s a good chance a lot of players aren’t even aware that the game has a crafting system now, let alone know how it works. Good thing then that Mark Yampolsky, a Systems Designer at Respawn Entertainment, took to the game’s official website to give everyone a rundown and get them up to speed.
Along with weapons, healing items, and other pieces of gear, players are now able to gather Materials that serve as the game’s crafting resource. Yampolsky says that players can extract Materials from devices scattered across different spots all across the map, ranging from major points of interest to smaller towns, and these locations change every match, ensuring players won’t have to rely on the same areas to collect Materials.
Once they’ve gathered enough, players can take their Materials to one of Apex's new crafting stations, known as Replicators, which appear at random locations and let players craft from a selection of eight items. While some loot will always be available at these, like ammo and med kits, the rest change on a daily and weekly basis, with weapons and attachments changing with the daily rotation, while equipment and high-tier consumables change with the weekly rotation. Luckily, players can see which items are available at the Replicators on any given day in the map and mode selection screens.
Not only do the Replicators provide players with new loot, they can also be used to upgrade one’s armor. Materials can be put into points for upgrading Evo Armor, and can even upgrade it if it's close enough to the next tier. Given that all armor aside from Gold Armor has been made into Evo Armor for Season 6, this is something that players should definitely find helpful.
The main goal with the crafting system, Yamposky says, is to get around the fact that in most battle royale situations, most of the loot tends to be hoarded by players who play aggressively and get lots of kills, leaving more defensive-minded players at a serious disadvantage. With the ability to craft in Apex Legends, more players should be capable of building “an inventory worthy of a late-game fight,” while at the same time being encouraged to move around the map in more diverse ways.
Apex Legends is free-to-play for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Switch version set to launch this fall.
Source: Apex Legends