Apex Legends dev wants to bring Wraith "under control" in Season 8
It means making her hitbox a tad bigger, but she might get a buff down the line if it works
I have some bad news for all you Wraith mains out there. Not only have her abilities been nerfed and her Naruto-style run taken away, now it sounds like Respawn plan on making her even easier to shoot in Season 8. A developer says they want to bring the most popular Apex Legends character "under control" next season, potentially increasing her hitbox. It's not all doom and gloom, though, because there's a tiny possibility she could get a buff if it all goes to plan.
In the most recent episode of The Third Party: An Apex Legends podcast (available on Spotify and Apple for your listening pleasure), senior game designer Daniel Klein said more Wraith changes are coming in Season 8 to get her "under control".
"I don’t want to hit her kit any more," he said. "We’ve pushed that to the breaking point where it’s barely still fun, but the extreme wind-up on her tactical (as much as it was necessary) it puts the ability more into the camp of cerebral power rather than satisfying in the moment power."
Her tactical ability, Into The Void, allows her to quickly turn invulnerable for a limited amount of time. Well, it used to be quick. A little while back it was tweaked so it takes much longer to activate now. Fortunately, the devs don't want to nerf her abilities again. Instead, they want to copy a change they made to Pathfinder at the beginning of Season 7, and increase her hitbox a tad.
"We’re going to take a look at her hitboxes and see how much wiggle room we have there," Klein adds. "With Pathfinder, it turned out that we had so much - that was a 20% increase in hitbox size.”
It makes sense. Wraith is one of the tiniest Legends, and even with her run and ability changes she's still so tough to shoot. Klein mentions that if the hitbox tweaks do bring her under control, then maybe they'll "look at ways at making her more in-the-moment fun again". So, it's possible she'll get some buffs down the line, they just need to make it so players can actually hit her first.
During the podcast they also talk about the other most popular Legends, and who's been played most this season. As always, Wraith takes up the top spot, followed by Bloodhound, Horizon, Octane and Lifeline. Bloodhound is the only one that surprises me there, and that's just because I find them a little boring to play personally (but I can't be trusted because I only pick characters for the aesthetic, so naturally I always play the pretty boy Mirage).
On social media lots of people seem pretty amazed that the cyborg juicer Octane is one of the most-used Legends, but I reckon it sounds about right given how big the new map is. Season 7 gave us Olymous, a huge city in the sky where all the buildings (and importantly, loot) are really spread out to accommodate the new vehicle, the Trident. Given that Octane is one of the fastest Legends with an ability that increases his sprint speed, he can zoom around pretty easily if there are no Tridents to hand.
He's not faster than a glitched Trident flying across the map, mind you.
If you feel like experimenting with Legends you wouldn't usually play, we've got guides for all of them. Check out our best Apex Legends characters guide to get the lowdown.