The Battle Royale's Niche Traversal Techniques Are Going Mainstream This Season
The game developers has an exciting surprise in store for the popular battle royale players, arriving just in time for the holidays. Fans of this game's highly fluid traversal will be pleased to learn that an innovative traversal feature is being implemented when Season 27: Amped launches on November 4th.
Unveiling The Mantle Boost
Named "Momentum Boosting" by the developers, this feature provides gamers a surge of propulsion when climbing over obstacles. According to lead battle royale designer Eric Canavese, Mantle Boosting has unofficially existed of the game for some time, often called as "mantle jumping." But it's no easy feat for casual gamers, and is mainly used by pro gamers in competitive play or esports competitions. In this update, Respawn simplifies the process for everyone to execute these advanced speed-boosts.
"This technique have been in the game for some time, but the movement isn't easy to pull off and gamers might not realize it [is in the game] without external guides," Canavese states. "Now including a Mantle Boost indicator so users can easily see when and how to trigger the fast-paced traversal skill, opening up the feature and adding new ways to play for a much wider base."
The Reasoning Behind Opening Up Advanced Mechanics
What's the reason for making a once niche movement quirk accessible to all players? Principal designer the development lead says developers wants players to experience empowerment — even those who are inexperienced.
"[The playerbase] is doing other crazy stuff like super-glides and tap-strafing, and we looked around at other games, looked at what the community are doing, and we wondered, 'What if we provide these capabilities to more players?'" Mohan explains. "Because right now, certain advanced [movement] mechanics are kind of janky to access — you need to remap your keybinds and execute within one-frame windows. So we said, 'How about we create a polished implementation?'"
Season 27 Emphasis on Mobility
Movement is primarily the central theme in this season, with characters the gravity mage, Rampart, and Valkyrie receiving enhancements to maintain them in motion. Recovery time on her tactical ability is shorter, and this skill will boost users into the air much quicker than it used to. Rampart's Amped Cover feature overhead protection and capability to grant movement bonuses to allies in range. However the spotlight is on aerial this Legend receiving significant improvements now, with multiple tweaks applied to enhance her as stronger, quicker, and more lethal.
"In my opinion many agree that Valkyrie's time is here," says character developer Ian Holstead. "There's no doubt she was dominant in the past, but with the introduction of new Legends, movement[-based] passives, and redeployment tools, it felt like she fell behind in today's the game. This presented an ideal chance for us to reexamine multiple elements [of her kit] and sort of bring her back to her glory days."
Valkyrie's Upgrades
To reclaim Valkyrie's relevance in the game's meta, the developer notes the team assessed all her skills and introduced some powerful modifications. Her jetpack have been upgraded, boosting velocity while airborne, and the jets themselves regenerates three times faster, enabling the player to spend more time in the air. She can no longer be harmed from her ultimate ability, which has also been upgraded to mark opponents who are hit from the missiles. Her Skyward Dive skill — which lifts her entire squad skyward for redeployment or escape — requires much less time to fire up. Additionally, she gains recently added perk choices that users can choose to conserve resources, widen the area of her Missile Swarm, or accelerate her ultimate takeoff time.
"Her jet pack now delivers on the pilot experience," he comments.
Olympus Improvements
Even the game's lone airborne map, this location, receives a movement-friendly overhaul, with an extensive redesign that expands choke points and renders securing elevated positions a bit less daunting. The developers state Apex Legends Season 27 focuses on giving players the tools required to keep up with matches.
"Really, we were looking at the game's core identity as a movement shooter," says lead Legend designer Josh Mohan.
The battle royale the Amped season launches November 4th at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST.
