Apex Legends Season 18 will turn Revenant into an absolute terror
Apex Legends: Resurrection puts the immortal murder-bot front and centre amid a host of balance changes
There's always been quite a disconnect between Revenant's reputation and his abilities in Apex Legends. All the cinematics we get of this infamous, terrifying murder-bot show him single-mindedly pursuing his targets, scuttling along walls, and wiping out enemies at close range like a cybernetic John Wick. But once you get in-game, his toolkit has always been fairly underwhelming - with the exception of his Death Totem, which never seemed to sit well thematically with the character.
Season 18 of Apex looks to change all that. Revenant is finally getting the love he deserves with a new sinister-looking base skin and a full rework of all his abilities. And guys, I think they might have gone a bit too far making him scary again. I think he might be overpowered.
Revenant's kit is far more aggressive and lone-wolf in Season 18. His new Passive, Assassin's Instinct, still allows him to crouch-walk and climb walls quickly, but now he can also highlight nearby low-health enemies in line-of-sight with him. From the looks of the trailer, the scan goes right through Catalyst's Ultimate as well. Scary stuff.
But the Tactical and Ultimate are where things get really crazy. Shadow Pounce, the Tactical, allows Revenant to charge up a massive leap which can reach as far as an Octane Launch Pad, allowing Revenant to hurtle in and out of combat as fast as any other Legend in the game. Combine this with his Ultimate, Forged Shadows, which wraps Revenant's upper torso in damage-mitigating shadows that have to be destroyed before Rev's torso hitbox can be shot, and you've got a Legend who is seemingly top-tier in both mobility and survival.
Oh, and knocking enemies while the Ultimate is active instantly refreshes the protective shadows and his Tactical cooldown, allowing him to leap again immediately. That sounds absolutely nightmarish, and a bit overpowered to my ears. But we'll have to wait until Season 18 actually arrives to know for sure.
Respawn have had issues with releasing completely overpowered characters before having to tone them down (Seer and Horizon come to mind), and while Revenant isn't a new character, his rework this season is in place of a new character, standing front and centre amid the various other changes the new season brings. Revenant will be a freely unlocked character for all players throughout Season 18, so we'll be seeing an awful lot of him from day one.
As for those other changes I mentioned? The Charge Rifle is being reworked, turning it into a projectile-based weapon (read: no longer hitscan) that deals more damage the further away the target is. A full-auto Prowler is taking the Hemlok's place in the Care Package. SMGs across the board are getting a nerf to headshot damage and strafe speed (along with a nerf to the R-99's recoil and mag size), while Shotguns are being brought back into the limelight a bit with a tightened spread for the Mastiff and the return of Disruptor Rounds to the Alternator and the Peacekeeper. Whaaaat?
And, perhaps most importantly for ranked players, several changes are coming to the way Ladder Points (LP) are doled out, attempting to fix Apex's egregious ratting problem by adding a minimum bonus for eliminations across all ranked tiers, and adjusting down the LP gains through survival alone. Season 17 saw a ridiculous spike in the Masters tier, with nearly a tenth of the ranked playerbase in the Master section of the bell curve thanks to players simply avoiding fights and hiding until the final circles close.
One thing I'd really love to have seen was a nerf to the Nemesis Assault Rifle, but no such nerf will appear in Season 18's patch notes. The silver lining is that the Nemesis will be going into the crafting rotation, meaning it will no longer be floor loot each match but will have to be specifically crafted by players. The other gun going into crafting alongside the Nemesis is the Mozambique (with Hammerpoints).
All these and other changes are coming with the arrival of Apex Legends: Resurrection when it launches on Tuesday 8th August. Prepare to get manhandled by shadow-encrusted Revenants careening through the air towards you with a Disruptor-fed Peacekeeper. If you want to brush up on your skills in prep for taking on the immortal homicidal cyborg, look no further than our Apex Legends tips and tricks.