Apex Legends says hello to a bigger Olympus and a better Crypto
We're a week out from a new season of Apex Legends. And while it's too soon to get a brand new map a la last season's Storm Point, there's still new ground to discover on Apex's loftiest arena.
In a dev panel last night, Respawn broke down some of the map and balance changes coming to Apex in Season 12: Defiance. The biggie is that Olympus, pristine flying city and personal favourite, is back—and bigger than before.
While Olympus has long been a fairly balanced map, next season's changes aim to pull attention away from the meat grinder around Hammond Labs and Waterfall. The area surrounding Bonsai towers has been expanded with broken, 'shifted' hillsides and two new points of interest. The first, Terminal, replaces the tight choke between Labs and Bonsai with a layered interior section set within Olympus' vast phase runner, but it's the second that'll draw the most eyes.
As seen in the launch trailer, Phase Driver is a massive teleporter plaza that adds a dense arena at a previously empty spot between Bonsai and Hydroponics. Being a portal, Phase Driver sports terminals that can be used to summon loot orbs from thin air. These have a 30-second cooldown and make one hell of a racket, so make sure the coast is clear before yanking supplies from the ether.
Phased terrain pieces have been scattered across the south of the map, but fortunately that's the extent of Olympus' destruction. It's an additive map change, not destructive, bulking out the map without breaking it apart. After what happened to World's Edge, that's more than welcome.
Respawn also detailed a few balance changes coming with Defiance, the biggest being a long-overdue buff for everyone's favourite hacker. Crypto has been maligned for some time, having to be
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