Fragment has gone. Or at least, the iconic landing spot will look mighty unfamiliar when you drop there in Apex Legends Season 17: Arsenal. Monument is a new POI that takes up most of Frag East, a museum crammed full of references that eagle-eyed fans will pore over for hours. World’s Edge is cooling, buildings are moving across the map, and that’s just the start. The Firing Range has been expanded tenfold, there are challenges to complete with every weapon, a new item that might be a subtle Valk nerf, and the customary Care Package and Crafter rotations. But back to the elephant in the map.
“A big goal for looking at Fragment with this update was to make it still a fun and exciting place to land,” explains Respawn’s lead map designer, Jeff Shaw. However, the team was keen to make it “less degenerative” than its current state, where the majority of the lobby drops there and ensures an empty mid-game. The large new museum building will be a focal point, complete with sniper nests accessible by ziplines, a glass ceiling to offer tactical advantages, and Easter Eggs harkening back to pre-release content according to narrative lead Ashley Reed, but Shaw believes its design is “healthier” than previous Fragment buildings. The rest of the map has also been tweaked to entice players away from the central hotspot.
The most popular building in Fragment, barring possibly the ‘streamer building’ in Frag East, is the construction site in the southwest corner of the POI. This has been removed to make way for the large museum, but if you look closely (or land somewhere else for once), you can find it in a new-look Lava City, now known as Stacks. I’ve always liked landing in the south of the map, so maybe this change will draw less ire from my teammates as I head towards Big Maude in future.
Mirage a Trois returns to World’s Edge, and has been removed from all other maps, while Bloodhound’s Trials has also been reworked. Since the planet is cooling, all lava is now traversable, opening up new rotations and areas of POIs. The centre of Harvester is now a hot loot zone, Skyhook has new rotation paths and there’s another loot Vault nearby, to further balance the map. The designers are trying to spread players out, and while I think anything short of the train being repaired will struggle to draw players away from Fragment, the changes go some way to enticing players to the further corners of World’s Edge.
There’s no new weapon this season – the Nemesis was clearly enough of a shake-up to last us a while – but the usual rotations are hitting Care Packages and Crafters. The RE-45 returns to floor loot, being replaced in the Care Package by the L-Star, and the Alternator and Sentinel are heading into the Crafter. I think I’m going to start maining Pathfinder purely so I can zipline in the opposite direction to any Care Packages I see holding an L-Star, and most of us can continue to leave the Crafters well alone.
After a season off, a new Legend enters the fray. Ballistic is a distinguished older gentleman, British to a tee (or should that be tea?). His abilities are based on buffing allies and debuffing opponents. You can read them in full here:
Passive: Sling – store a third weapon with no attachments. No crate weapons, gold weapons, or Rampart guns.
Tactical: Whistler – Titanfall players look away now. This is a smart pistol which locks onto a target, and applies a debuff which causes their gun to overheat and explode upon use. If it misses, it creates an area of effect zone that will apply the same effects to an opponent that walks through it.
Ultimate: Tempest – a pulse which buffs Ballistic and nearby teammates, granting them unlimited ammo, faster movement when armed, faster reloads, and gives Ballistic a gold version of his current weapon. Top tip: try it with a Havoc for that free Turbocharger.
There’s a new survival item, too – the Evac Tower. This is a portable redeployment balloon that you can use anywhere on the map if you need a quick escape. It’s an indirect Valk nerf, but doesn’t go quite as high as her Ultimate, meaning that she’s still a slightly better option. The balloons also have health bars, so a few squads focusing them could destroy them as you ascend.
The ping system has also been reworked with more specific directions added, based on Respawn’s data about the least-used pings on the current wheel. “We wanted to add the kinds of pings and phrases that you normally say on mic,” explains lead game designer Josh Mohan. There are now options for ‘avoid this area’, ‘I heard enemy audio’, and ‘regroup’, among others. There are also new options for downed players, such as pinging enemies that are reviving or specifically asking not to be revived if your teammate is trying to pull a risky one. You can also now ping specifics on the map menu, which is a big quality of life improvement.
Weapon mastery is another addition in Apex Legends Season 17, which rewards you for using each gun. Gain XP to level a weapon up purely by using it in game (the Firing Range and private matches don’t count), and unlock cosmetic rewards like banners and badges. Experience design director Aaron Rutledge assures me that this isn’t like Call of Duty, and there is no power gain from levelling up weapons, in order to keep things fair for new players. However, there are a series of fun challenges to complete as you level up.
Every 20 levels gained with a specific weapon grants you a challenge to unlock the associated cosmetic. With 100 levels per weapon, this means five challenges of increasing difficulty, culminating in an epic trial to complete in-game. Rutledge let on that the final test for the Kraber is landing three 360 no-scopes (don’t worry, they can be in separate games), so you can imagine what the rest will look like. The reward for mastering each is a Legendary skin for that weapon.
Outside of the battle royale, there are huge changes to the Firing Range, which is unrecognisable in the new update. It’s massive, for starters, with areas custom-built for practising movement tech, an arena for 1v1s, and a whole town with buildings to weave between. If you don’t have teammates to join you, don’t worry. The combat dummies now have fully customisable combat settings, improving from the simple strafes that were previously added.
Apex Legends Season 17 is shaking up World’s Edge, and you can bet that the reworked Fragment will be incredibly popular at the start of the season. Whether that passion for hot dropping wears off as players start to explore further afield as the season progresses remains to be seen, but I’m hoping for a quieter time so I can spot some of the easter eggs that Reed’s team have put in the museum.
“There was one that got us laughing quite a bit and we were like, ‘don't make it too much, subtle will be good.’ So let's see if you can spot it.” Eyes front, Legends.