Fans of Apex Legends are counting down the hours until the start of the new season. Titled Upheaval, Season 21 has a May 7 release date on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. The new Apex Legends season will launch alongside a big update at 6pm BST UK time. The highlight of the new season is the launch of new character Alter, whose Ultimate allows players to regroup by creating a portal for characters to pass through. Elsewhere, the Broken Moon map will have numerous additional points of interest to explore, such as Cliff Side, Breaker Wharf and Quarantine Zone. That’s on top of six weeks Duos Takeover, new heals, Legends upgrades and Artefacts. Needless to say, a new Battle Pass will rewards players with lots of new items, which you can see in the trailer further down the page. That’s on top of the Season 21 patch notes, which include various quality of life improvements, bug fixes and balance changes.
Apex Legends Season 21 update patch notes…
MAPS
• Broken Moon shattered
– New POIs: Cliff Side, Experimental Labs, Solar Pods, Space Port, Quarantine Zone, Underpass
– Breaker Wharf updated
– New rotations to switch things up and keep squads on the move
• Added new possible Ring Console, Survey Beacon, and Crafter spawn locations to World’s Edge and Storm Point, and further evened out the probability of a prop spawning at any specific location
• World’s Edge
– Added possible Ring Console spawn locations to Mirage à Trois and Survey Camp
– Added possible Survey Beacon spawn locations to Survey Camp and The Geyser
• Storm Point
– Added possible Crafter spawn location to Command Center
– Added possible Survey Beacon spawn locations to The Wall, and the unnamed POIs Northeast of Checkpoint and at the edge of the map East of Storm Catcher
WORLD SYSTEMS
• Improved end ring generation system
BUG FIXES
• Equipping an Evac Tower or Mobile Respawn Beacon will no longer close the inventories of all other players in the match
• Firing Range: fixed some edge cases where Legend change was available when it shouldn’t be
• Fixed occasional crash when interacting with an enemy’s crafted banner
• “Mischief Medic” no longer appears as “Highlighted Healer”
• Olympus: players can no longer enter/exit Vault without key
• Survey Beacons and Ring Consoles should now be pingable again from the map
• When hip firing with the Devotion, it will now properly track its reticle
LEGENDS
• Ballistic: duration of speedy whistler restored to 2s
• Bloodhound
– Passive markers no longer appear for teammates not on player’s squad
– Players can once again be scanned by two Bloodhounds at the same time
• Catalyst: fixed Dark Veil not charging for a short duration off of spawn
• Crypto: recall audio when the drone is far away from you is audible once again
• Maggie: Removed drill burn audio for players in the area of effect while phased
• Removed Wraith Shadows from the void if you aren’t playing as Wraith
• Wattson: resolved bad spawn points for Arc Stars generated from the Falling Stars upgrade
QUALITY OF LIFE
• Additional security improvements
• Airdropping Replicators now project a beam upwards as they are descending to help differentiate them from other airdrops
• Back by popular demand, you can requeue at the end of Pubs BR and Mixtape matches
• Ballistic: can now add any locked-set weapon into the sling where it will be converted to the proper locked-set tier and restored to its original state when being moved out (red-tier still not allowed)
• Death Box Flyers: option to automatically ping the location of the Death Box will be prompted when knocking it from a Flyer’s grasp
• Improved the choice of consumables that are auto-selected when either reaching full health, reaching full shields, or when dropping your last selected item. The new choice should more intelligently select shield consumables or prioritize syringes for quick healing. These changes were made to help new players have more optimal outcomes.
• Improved use interactions with doors when self res is available
• Map spawn audit for all Mixtape Modes: Phase Runner, Habitat, Thunderdome, Zeus Station
• Upgraded to the latest version of Easy Anti-Cheat
Pings
• Should now go through all translucent surfaces like windows
• Players can now request for Grenades (Arc Stars, Frag Grenades, and Thermites)
– Works similar to healing items: hold the Grenade button to open the Ordnance Wheel, hover on an ordnance item, select Ping to request
Thunderdome
• Airdrop location adjustments
• Control
– Moved C capture point to landing pad
– Adjusted spawns attached to B capture point
GRAPHICS
• Added new “Map Detail” PC video setting to adjust the amount of environmental decoration and set dressing (this may improve performance for players with low-spec PCs and those targeting high framerates)
• Changed the way players opt-in to the DX12 beta: if you’re playing via the DirectX 12 beta now, the launch argument “-eac_launcher_settings SettingsDX12.json” should be changed to “-anticheat_settings=SettingsDX12.json”
• Improved accuracy and visual fidelity of baked environment lighting for static outdoor objects
• Improved accuracy of baked lighting for dynamic objects, to avoid situations where Legends would appear unlit
• Significantly improved CPU performance of the Rendering Hardware Interface (RHI), mostly benefitting the PC DirectX 12 beta
