Apex Legends' newest hero Ballistic is wine-fuelled, retired, and deadly

rockpapershotgun.com:

To celebrate Apex Legends’ upcoming Season 17, developer Respawn have announced the newest hero to join the roster: old-timer Ballistic. The battle-royale's last season had no new Legend, disappointing a few Apexers, but Ballistic is coming out of his comfy wine-fuelled retirement and joining the fight on May 9th, just for you guys.

The latest animated episode from Respawn’s Stories From The Outlands series introduces us to Ballistic in his luxurious abode, which probably explains his very posh government name, August Montgomery Brinkman. As you can see, his late-night channel-hopping turns into an unwanted trauma recap as a news channel recounts his former career as a Thunderdome Games champ. After the loss of his brother-in-law, Ballistic retired from the games, and his grim seclusion led to his family abandoning him.

A mix of alcohol, anger issues, and too much money causes Ballistic to smash his big TV, at which point we learn his estranged son, Nathaniel, has also qualified for the Apex Games. Absent fathers only show up when it’s too late, so Ballistic decides to clean up, shower, shave, and rejoin the Apex Games himself to show the young’uns how it’s done and to keep his son out of the fights.

My favourite part of most live services isn’t the actual games - of course not -it’s the semi-frequent, self-contained animated episodes that you can watch with almost no context. A cute robot lost in the wilderness? An old man putting down the wine bottles? Sure, count me in for five minutes.

Apex Legends: Arsenal - that’s Season 17 - will drop on May 9th. A full trailer for Arsenal should debut soon, and Respawn will likely tease more of what’s new for the shooter in the days leading up to kick off.