Apex Legends' first season of content, Wild Frontier, was just a wee bit of a letdown in terms of fun. Highlights include the Apex Elite queue, a few cool skins, and of course, Octane. But all in all, it felt pretty lackluster when it comes to content. Outside of the new Legend, nothing really shook up the core gameplay, and the Battle Pass was bloated with obvious filler material.
Luckily, Battle Charge, Apex's second season, seems to be pretty squarely aimed at addressing those shortcomings. Its comparative truckload of new content and redesigned Battle Pass grind have been out in the wild for a few weeks now, which is long enough to draw a few conclusions concerning what it's bringing to the table. Below are the ten best additions that it's made to Kings Canyon and the Apex experience.
10 The Updated Map
Saying that Apex's battlegrounds needed a bit of sprucing up would be more than a bit of an understatement, because Kings Canyon was practically dying for an overhaul. Well designed as it is, even a sprawling battle royale map starts to feel a little tired once you've traipsed its length for the thousandth time.
Season two really kicked things off with a bang by altering, and in some cases, outright demolishing familiar locales. They even added a few more, such as Containment and the infamous Cage. Not to mention the monolithic Leviathans actually standing on the map, which can and will squish you if you don't take care around them.
9 Daily & Weekly Challenges
This one's a bit of a give and take, but it is a step in the right direction. The conventionally boring and straightforward grind of season one's Battle Pass has been replaced by a new, challenge-based system to encourage variety in play style and character choice. The weekly challenges, in particular, will stack up until the player has time to complete them.
It's still possible to grind out levels with XP alone, but the challenge system allows more adventurous players to snag additional levels and bonuses. That said, it's still a pretty grind-heavy experience, and could definitely use some further tinkering.
8 Hammerpoint Rounds
This new hop-up modification for the Mozambique and P2020 has nearly redefined what were once bemoaned as the two worst weapons in the game. Hammerpoint rounds flatly increase damage versus unshielded targets, making them an absolutely deadly early game find.
Even beyond the early game, breaking an opponent's shield then swapping to a modded Mozambique for the kill is now actually a legitimate strategy. If you'd said that to an Apex player two months ago, they would've laughed you out of your own home.
7 Wattson
Wattson's a total breath of fresh air. The name of the Apex game is, quite usually, push, push, and push some more. It has a way of bringing out and rewarding aggressive play styles and flanking, so introducing another straightforwardly defensive skill set to work against it was definitely the right move.
Her fences stun and hurt enemies passing through them, effectively cordoning off choke points and doorways. Her ultimate calls down a pylon that not only repels grenades and ordnance, but recharges teammates shields and refills her fences faster. She's a great deal of fun to play, and her skills mesh with defensive legends like Caustic beautifully.
6 L-STAR EMG
After several months of Krabers and Mastiffs, the care package weapon lineup was in serious need of a new player. Respawn answered that issue with the L-STAR EMG, a plasma-belching beast of a gun that almost literally melts through the opposition.
A true pray-and-spray delight, the L-STAR's massive projectiles and ridiculous magazine size mean that your sights don't necessarily need to be on target, but leading a bit will help as the energy based bullets travel a little slower than usual.
5 Ping System Improvements
Sometimes, the little things do matter. Season two's update included a few improvements to Apex's already much appreciated contextual ping system, vastly streamlining squad communication.
The best of these absolutely has to be characters now specifying precisely which hop-up that they need when pinging one for their weapon. Weapons that support only one hop-up totally vocalize the specific hop-ups, where weapons accepting several different options will display which ones are compatible with it in the chat feed.
4 Disruptor Rounds
Along the same lines as the Hammerpoint rounds modification, this hop-up for the RE45 and Alternator seems pretty straightforwardly addressed at upgrading the effectiveness of weapons that, until now, went largely ignored on the battlefield.
Disruptor rounds, in contrast to the Hammerpoints, increase damage versus the target's shields. The Alternator in particularly was in sore need of something to make it useful, and this certainly did the trick. Managing to get both sets of new hop ups and their applicable weapons creates a remarkably deadly hotswap combination.
3 Energy Weapon Magazine Mods
It might seem like an awfully minor talking point, but even subtle changes to the established pecking order of Apex's firearm selection can have a surprising amount of impact. This is definitely one of those situations.
Energy weapons have always seemed to scale a bit poorly in comparison to other, more mod-friendly selections, which is an issue this humble addition takes a solid bite out of. It's particularly noticeable with the Havoc or Devotion, making them even more enticing prospects to carry through to the endgame.
2 Ranked Mode
Where the Apex Elite queue seemed like an awkward sort of test run for a more tightly competitive Apex experience, the new ranked mode introduced for season two looks like the real deal.
Unique rewards provide more than enough incentive to play, and Respawn really seems to put have put the work into its matchmaking algorithm, automatically matching pre-made teams in a higher skill rating to make random queuing an actual possibility.
1 More Gold-Tier Guns
If the way to a person's heart is through their stomach, then the way to a gamer's heart is through their loot. Respawn is well aware of this by now, and so naturally, season two also rotated in a new selection of fully kitted, deliciously golden guns for players to get their hands on.
The new offerings on the table include fully loaded, golden versions of the Flatline, Alternator, Mozambique, RE45 and P2020. So virtually every weapon that can be fitted with the new hop-up modifications can be found fully kitted out and ready to fight.