Apex Legends will let you practice without pressure on the Firing Range
Get fired
You've just dropped into a warzone with 59 vicious murderers. But hold up, where's your trusty Wingman? What's this, a charge rifle? What does that do? Worse, both your teammates nicked your mains, and you're dropping as Caustic. Bloody hell, how does this gassy doctor play? Before you know it, you've been booted back to the main menu with a bang. Rubbish.
All that fuss will soon be left in the past. Apex Legends is gearing up to get you trained on every last gun, hero and piece of gear with new training mode Firing Range, coming later in Season 3.
Firing Range was teased during Respawn's first Apex Devstream last Friday. Scrub to 7:07 for details on the new - if familiar - practice mode.
Anyone who's popped into ApeLegs's current tutorial will instantly recognise the location. In fact, with its ranks of weapons and targets, that tutorial has been acting as a de-facto training mode for players since launch. It was limited, locking you into Lifelife while the AI barks basic instructions at you, but at least nobody was trying to murder you for learning the recoil on an R-301.
Firing Range will turn this limited lecture into a freeform practice ground. Every single piece of kit, from guns and scopes to hop-ups and helmets, is littered across the ground, letting you build any loadout you wish. You'll also be able to switch characters at any time. Many of ApeLegs's newer weapons and heroes have come with peculiar quirks.
Learning a new gun via trial-by-fire was never ideal, frankly, and I've always felt I was letting down my team by picking up Wattson or Crypto with no handle on how they played.
You'll also be able to bring a full trio into training to practice highly-choreographed team manoeuvres with. I also reckon there's plenty of map-breaking mischief you could get up to with Pathfinder's new-found flight on such a small yet ring-free arena. Just a hunch.
Respawn wouldn't clarify when exactly Firing Range will arrive, only that it'll come to Apex Legends sometime during the current season. The rest of the stream dives further into this month's spooky Fight Or Fright event arriving Tuesday the 15th. They made me look at Caustic Clown again. We talked about this, Respawn.