What you need to know
- Apex Legends: Revelry is the next season of developer Respawn Entertainment's ongoing shooter, Apex Legends.
- Apex Legends: Revelry eschews adding a new playable Legend, with the team focusing on new game experiences and rebalancing the existing Legends.
- The developers are sunsetting the Arenas mode, while the highly-requested Team Deathmatch is finally being introduced.
- Apex Legends: Revelry is slated to launch on Feb 14, 2023.
The next big season for Apex Legends is almost here, and the developers at Respawn Entertainment are shaking some things up.
To start, there's no new Legend coming this season. While past seasons have frequently expanded the roster, with more recent additions including Catalyst and Vantage, the developers are choosing to focus on balancing and tweaking the entire existing cast for Apex Legends: Revelry through new Classes and Perks, something that requires not introducing another character.
Arenas mode is also going away, with the developers choosing to sunset this mode because it just hasn't clicked with majority of players.
"We feel Arenas is missing the mark for our players,” says Evan Nikolich, senior design director at Respawn Entertainment. Arenas will be replaced by the widely-requested Team Deathmatch, which will be rolling out as part of Apex Legends: Revelry. Team Deathmatch is fast-paced, with two teams of six players picking loadouts and fighting until a team wins two rounds.
Respawn Entertainment is also taking time to focus on the new player experience, making the Battle Royale a touch more accessible to new players. Anyone playing Apex Legends for the first time will now have to complete a handful of "orientation" matches, being paired mostly with bots, with only four squads of human players.
Across Battle Royale and Team Deathmatch, players will also get to try out a new gun, a burst rifle called the Nemesis, which should shake up close and mid-range encounters.
All of this comes on the heels of recent game cancellations at Electronic Arts, with Apex Legends Mobile shutting down and a new unannounced Titanfall game reportedly being shuttered. Speaking on the former, game director Steven Ferreira noted that the closure of Apex Legends Mobile was "not a reflection" on Apex Legends as a whole.
Apex Legends: Revelry is slated to launch on Feb. 14 for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.
Windows Central's take
There's some promising tidbits here, but we'll have to wait and see how the Legend remastering goes to make any other calls. Team Deathmatch should be a welcome addition, and Respawn making sure newer players have a better experience is also welcome. All things told, this should continue to be one of the best Xbox games for any multiplayer fans for some time.
