Apex Legends has just released its 16th season, and honestly, it’s one of the best they’ve made in a while.
Before season 16, Apex made it their mission to release a new legend at the start of every season. This changed this season with them deciding to focus more on the gameplay changes to make their game better than before. Honestly, this was a great decision, and I would hope they would do it more often. That one decision made the game feel much more smooth and fixed a lot of issues that I, along with many other players, have been having.
Although there were many great new things added this season, let’s begin with my personal favorite. Wraith mains rejoice because THE QUEEN HAS RETURNED. Anyone who’s played Apex, and maybe some who haven’t, know that Wraith is undoubtedly the most popular character in the game. She’s basically EA’s poster child at this point, and it makes me happy to know that her greatness has finally been restored.
In season 16, they made a change to her portal ability, making the distance she can travel much longer than before. Alongside this, she also speeds up over time while creating her portal, making her very much viable in the current meta.
Many legends alongside Wraith did also get pretty drastic changes. Mirage, who has been known as one of the worst legends from the beginning, finally got buffed to make him more of a medic like character. Pathfinder got his grapple range and speed increased, giving his ultimate ability more utility.
The biggest menace to the game for the past season, Seer, finally got his well deserved nerf alongside Bloodhound as well getting rid of what was known as the “scan meta”. All these changes have finally given characters that have been overlooked a chance to get some shine. Keeping the same meta for so long only hurts the game so it is great to see some changes finally coming along.
Another exciting thing is the addition of team deathmatch which Apex fans have been begging for since the start of the game. Team deathmatch or TDM for short is just a battle of which team can score the most kills; the team who gets the most wins the game. It’s a pretty nice addition after having only battle royale for so long.
Something interesting that they did add as well was a place for new players to learn the game through what is called Orientation Matches. Basically, instead of playing against those who have been playing the game since the beginning, new players get matched against A.I. and lower level players around the world.
What I think was the worst area of changes was the weapon changes. This season gave birth to the game’s current biggest problem, the Nemesis assault rifle. This monster hits for 27 per headshot and gets a faster fire rate the longer you shoot. So long story short if you hear this gun do yourself a favor and RUN.
Why I believe this is a bad meta shift for weapons is because a lot of weapons that were a problem are back to being easily accessible. Many staple weapons such as the R-301 received very unnecessary nerfs. I always have problems whenever weapons that are balanced receive nerfs and weapons that are a problem will be left alone or buffed. There were some good changes such as the R-99 getting a buff finally making it viable once more, but overall I feel as though the weapon changes were the worst part of this season.
After season 15, things were looking a little bleak for Apex. But, I feel as though this season has had a great response from the community and things will continue going smoothly. I do feel like there could be some better things added and removed but overall this season has been pretty great, and I believe it is definitely worth a shot.