Apex Legends Season 3 is finally here: Here’s what’s new

The third season update may be the biggest and most important in the history of the popular BR game Apex Legends, as it comes with a whole new map, a new character and a new weapon and huge changes to game mechanics and legends

The new season, called Meltdown, offers players the chance to experience a unique playground never seen before in other Battle Royale games via the World’s Edge map, which takes a place on a different planet from the original King’s Canyon map and has lava, snowy areas, and a fast train that you can use to navigate and fight for loot in very exciting battles. As you enter the game you will notice that the original map is no longer available to play, something the developers have done to urge all players to try the new map until they re-work on the old map to be reintroduced later.

The cyber-hacker will also make his awaited entry, having been teased since the start of the second season and now we are here with the 11th Hero, with a number of new tricks and abilities that will change the way teams play.

Crypto has the following abilities:

• Passive: NEUROLINK, which allows Crypto and his colleagues to see what the drones show 30 meters away.
• Tactical: Q ability launches a small drones to explore the opponent’s destructive SURVEILLANCE DRONE
• Ultimate: Z ability is DRONE EMP that releases an EMP charge that causes 50 armor damage, slowing down the enemy and destroying traps

New weapons changes coming in the third season are indeed numerous. Not only will we acquire the new Charge Rifle, but we will see a number of new attachments (and the removal of others) in addition to decreasing the strength of some weapons and increasing others. The most notable changes are as follows:

• Charge Rifle: A new weapon found through the game world. It causes minor damage when directed while charging the shot to the enemy, and then causes significant damage when the charged shot is launched
• Disturptor Rounds and Skullpiercer removal – Longbow and Wingman now have headshots multiplier buff to compensate
• New Hopup added: Anvil Receiver – can be attached to Flatline and R-301 to increase the damage of bullets in Semi-auto mode with twice the amount of storage
• New Hopup added : Double Tap – can be attached to the G7 and EVA8 to launch two quick shots at once
• Reduced clip size with Extended mag for R-99 – Level I will have 20 bullets instead of 22, second 23 instead of 26, and third 27 instead of 30
• Prowler recoil increase in Burst mode
• Longbow nerfed by slowing the firing rate and weakening leg injury damage
• G7 damage buffed increased from 30 to 34 points
• Hemlok damage buffed increased from 18 to 22
• L-Star nerf damage is weakened from 21 to 19, but now comes with a Digital Threat sight
• Mozambique will have faster recoil recovery in order to better track targets

As for the changes on legends including buffs and nerfs we have the following:

• Giblartar – Dome Shield’s ability allows players within it to use tools 25% faster, but charging power now takes 30 seconds instead of 20
• Defensive Bombardment standby time reduced from 4.5 minutes to 3 minutes, usage time reduced from 8 to 6 seconds, and throwing range increased by 36%
• Bloodhound – 33% faster Eye of all father, 30% Beast of the Hunt and 25% to 30% faster
• Bangalore – Increase Rolling Thunder damage from 20 to 40
• Pathfinder – Reduce hook velocity by 33%, and increase Zipline charging time to 120 seconds

Last but not least, we have a new change in how the abilities of the rare level 4 accessories, Gold Armor and Gold Backpack, work, shuffling the effects between them and adding a new effect as follows:

• Gold Armor – The Shield recharge effect was eliminated when executing a Finisher on a knocked opponent (giving this ability by default to all characters). The new ability is the Fast Use of Gold backpack previously, which allows the use of heal items at double speed
• Gold Backpack – A new feature of the bag called Guardian Angel that allows its wearer to resuscitate signed friends at a faster rate and healthier than usual, meaning that a refreshed friend will have higher primitive health than usual without the bag with a refresher

Other changes coming with the new update include the possibility of adding character dialogs to the Ping wheel from the player’s Intro / Kill quips list, as well as some fixes here and there and minor additions. The new Battle Pass content will also launch today with the third season, and will provide 100 diverse awards, most notably legendary Skins for Lifeline and Pathfinder in addition to another for Peacekeeper shotgun.

You can download the update starting now on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.