Apex Legends Reworks Shatter Caps Hop-Up in Season 12 to Encourage More Use

gamerant.com:

Apex Legends is going to see its meta change quite a fair bit with the release of Season 12, Defiance. Set to launch on February 8th, Respawn Entertainment has already detailed some changes that will be dropping as part of the content update, one of which will be a rework of the infamous Shatter Caps Hop-Up.

Designed primarily as a crutch for marksman weapons in close-quarters combat, Apex Legends' Shatter Caps Hop-Up was supposed to make the 30-30 Repeater and the Bocek Bow viable at close ranges by splitting their projectiles into short-range shotgun blasts, but it never took off due to being vastly inferior to virtually every other close-quarters combat option.

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The new and updated version of the currently underwhelming Shatter Caps Hop-Up is supposed to make it far more appealing across the board. For example, equipping this Hop-Up will now turn the weapon into a dual-fire monstrosity: players will no longer need to toggle between the two different firing modes. Instead, hip-fire will always trigger Shatter-Caps rounds, while aiming down sights will have the weapon function as it otherwise would.

This change should do away with most of the clumsiness that currently comes with using this particular Hop-Up, making both the bow and the repeater significantly more appealing in close-range engagements. Of course, changes coming to Shatter Caps aren't too exciting all on their own, but when put next to some other reworks that are coming with Season 12, such as letting RE-45 equip Hammerpoint Rounds, it becomes clear that Respawn is changing the meta quite a lot.

The release of Apex Legends: Defiance will also see the removal of Flatline and Longbow from the ground loot pool.