Apex Legends Season 21 drops on May 7, 2024, and brings a new Legend, Alter. Broken Moon has been revamped and the Solo mode is also back after years but with a twist. Here are the full patch notes for the season 21 of Apex.
The biggest highlight of the new season is Alter, a skirmisher who joins and expands the Legend roster. She can create on-way portals and one of her abilities allows you to pass through hard surfaces like doors, walls, ground, etc.
Broken Moon has undergone huge changes that introduce new POIs and faster modes of travel. Apex Artifacts is another highlight of Apex Legends Season 21 as these are universal Mythic Melee Cosmetics that any Legend can equip.
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They’re customizable and require Exotic Shards to unlock more variants. The Solo mode is also finally coming for a limited time and will work in a different way than last time. Below you can find the full patch notes for Apex Legends Season 21, via Respawn.
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Respawn EntertainmentAlter’s ultimate creates a one-way portal.
Apex Legends Season 21 patch notes: Upheaval
Balance Updates
Care Package
Wingman returns to the floor
Projectile size reduced to pre-care package values
Damage reduced to 45 (was 50)
Skullpiercer Elite removed
Hipfire accuracy reduced
Now takes Boosted Loader Hop-Up
No longer takes magazines as an attachment
Devotion enters the Care Package
NEW Reverse Hipfire: sustained hipfire will tighten accuracy instead of widen
Damage increased to 16 (was 15)
Magazine size increased to 54 (was 48 at purple)
Reserve Ammo: 324
Empty reload time significantly reduced
Gold Weapons Rotation
Nemesis Burst AR, Triple-Take, Peacekeeper, Prowler PDW, Longbow DMR
Guaranteed Weapons out of Loot Bins
The first loot bin opened by an unarmed player will always contain a weapon
Retrieving Banners from Death Boxes
Collecting a banner will no longer lock the player out of critical gameplay actions
Running, shooting, punching and reviving will all break out of the banner collect animation while still registering as a successful collection
Players can immediately interact with a Death Box a second time while the animation is playing or continue holding the interact button to collect and enter a Death Box in one flow
Survival Items + Support Bins
Survival items now only spawn from a support bin’s tray if the team is in need
Weapons & Attachments
30-30 Repeater
Skullpiercer Hop-Up removed
Charge Rifle
ADS recoil improved and stabilized
Longbow DMR
Skullpiercer Hop-Up removed
Barrel Stabilizer attachment removed
Base recoil significantly improved
Projectile gravity reduced
ADS in and out time reduced
Triple-Take
Now takes Boosted Loader Hop-Up
Hop-Ups
Skullpiercer removed from the loot pool
Boosted Loader added to the loot pool
Reloading while near empty will speed up reloading and overload the next magazine with extra rounds
1x Digital Threat Optic
Removed from loot pool and all locked set weapons
Legends
Ash
Arc Snare
Changed to left-hand cast
No longer stows weapons or interrupts consumable use when launching
Phase Breach: inspired by some Alter tech, nearby enemies will be highlighted for players traveling through the Void
Ballistic
Whistler: damage from a planted smart bullet increased to 10 (was 5)
Upgrades
Care Package Insight: removed
NEW Sling-Shot: improves Ballistic’s base sling weapon to a blueset at Level 2 and a purpleset at Level 3
Bloodhound
Beast of the Hunt
Cooldown increased to 4m (was 3m)
Knocks with Ult active no longer extend duration
Upgrades: Level 3
Tactical Cooldown: removed
Taste of Blood: buffed HP gain on knock to 50 (was 25)
NEW Long Hunt: knocks extend Beast of the Hunt duration
Catalyst
Piercing Spikes
Cooldown decreased to 20s (was 25s)
Long Cast upgrade integrated into base Tactical
Dark Veil
Dark Veil length increased to 45m (was 40m)
Upgrades
Long Cast: removed
Long Veil: moved to Level 2
NEW Ferro-Door: fully rebuild and reinforce missing doors with Passive.
Caustic
Gas damage and slow now stops immediately after Caustic’s squad is eliminated
Gas damage ramps from 4 → 10 max (was 5 → uncapped), damage on knocked players down to flat 4 (was 5)
Conduit
Radiant Transfer
Can no longer target a Revenant while Forged Shadows is active
When Revenant activates Forged Shadows, any temporary shield generation ends immediately. Revenant will keep any temporary shields generated before activating his Ultimate.
Upgrades
Battery Collection: removed
NEW Battpack: can stack up to 3 Shield Batteries per inventory slot (doesn’t stack with Gold Backpack)
Crypto
Neurolink
Network Traffic upgrade now integrated into base kit
Squadcount banners are now visible anytime the drone is in a deployed state
Upgrades: Level 2
Tac & Ultimate Cooldowns: removed
Network Expansion: moved to Level 2
NEW Quick Ping: improved drone handling (faster accel/decel)
Upgrades: Level 3
NEW Satellite Imagery: drone scan persists for an additional 1.5s
NEW Hackathon: cut the drone cooldown in half, gain a speed boost anytime he uses his Ult or the drone is destroyed
Fuse
Upgrades
Big Bang: removed
NEW Ring Master: gain access to Ring Consoles
Scar Tissue:
Simplified and buffed damage mitigation to remove lingering burn effects
Take a flat 20 damage when crossing The Motherlode instead of 37 (50% of 75 hp) over time
Wreckless: fixed explosive damage mitigation not being applied on continuous Knuckle Cluster hits (should only take about 32 damage from a full Knuckle Cluster now with Wreckless)
Newcastle
Mobile Shield: throw anim speed increased (~2.5x faster)
Castle Wall
Will now destroy incoming projectiles headed towards the front of the wall while energized. It will not destroy projectiles fired from behind the wall nor bombardments from other Legend’s Ultimate projectiles.
Castle Wall energized duration increased to 1m (was 30s)
Upgrade – Stronghold: increased energized duration to 3m (was 2.5m)
Octane
Upgrades
Wreckless: removed
Mad Hops moved to Level 2
Thick Skin: now Level 2 and 3, updated to take 5 less Stim damage to reflect that it can be selected twice (was -25%)
Wattson
Upgrades
Falling Stars: Pylons will stop spawning Arc Stars when her squad is eliminated
Split Circuit: no longer reduces shield regen capacity
Wraith
Into the Void and Dimensional Rift: nearby enemies will be highlighted for players traveling through the Void
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
Modes
Solos
Six week Duos takeover
50 players
Second Chance Respawn
Automatically respawn once if you die in the first 4 rounds
Second chance converted to EVO if unused by the round cutoff
Battle Sense: HUD indicator when enemies are within 50 meters
Auto Heals
Health regenerates out of combat
Auto heal starts after each kill
Additional adjustments to loot pool, circle sizes, and round times to accommodate solo play
Mixtape
Lockdown added to rotation: Zeus Station, Monument
Mixtape Map Rotations
Default rotation
Control: Production Yard, Thunderdome
Gun Run: The Core, Wattson’s Pylon
Lockdown: Monument, Zeus Station
TDM: Skulltown, Zeus Station
Mixtape rotation (5/24-5/28)
Gun Run: The Core, Wattson’s Pylon
Lockdown: Monument, Zeus Station
TDM: Skulltown, Zeus Station
1st Week of Pride Month (6/1-6/7)
Control: Barometer
Gun Run: Wattson’s Pylon
Lockdown: Zeus Station
TDM: Zeus Station
Mixtape Rotation (6/11-6/17)
Control: Barometer, Caustic Treatment
Lockdown: Monument, Zeus Station
TDM: Skulltown, Zeus Station
TDM 24/7 (6/18-6/24)
Rules
Scorelimit: 35
Time Limit: 10 minutes
Increased health regen
Skull Town, Zeus Station, Monument, Thunderdome, Wattson’s Pylon, Fragment
LTM Rotations
5/24-5/28 Control: Production Yard, Thunderdome, Caustic, Barometer, Lava Siphon
5/31-6/3 Control: Production Yard, Thunderdome, Caustic, Barometer, Lava Siphon
6/11-6/17 Gun Run: Skull Town, Zeus Station, Thunderdome, Wattson, Fragment, The Core
Ranked
All players in a premade Ranked squad must be within 3 Rank tiers of each other or they will not be allowed to progress to matchmaking
No tuning changes to be made to ranked scoring for the launch of Upheaval
Season Reset
Where you ended in your last season of Ranked will determine where you start in Upheaval
If you ended your last season in Rookie, you will be reset to 1 RP
If you ended your last season above Rookie, you will be reset to Bronze IV
Split Timing
Split 2 will take place at the same time as the .1 patch, not a week after like in previous seasons
Upheaval Ranked Rewards
Your end-of-season rewards will now be determined by the highest Rank tier you achieved during the entire season
Split Rewards: your season-end reward badge will be animated if you match or surpass your Split 1 Rank in Split 2
If you do not achieve this, you will get the normal version of your badge
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
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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
