Apex Legends Season 12 Patch Notes

The long awaited 12th season of Apex Legends has finally arrived, and for avid players of the game, this means a brand new Legend in the form of Mad Maggie.

Respawn have added a ton of content to today's update, so we're going to run over everything you need to know!

Season 12 has implemented a ton of bug fixes, legend changes and overall quality of life fixes, so it can be tricky to figure out all that has happened.

The long awaited Crypto buff has also touchdowned which should boost the populaity of the character.

However, with all of this said, we're going to run over all the patch notes for Season 12 down below.

NEW LEGEND

Mad Maggie, cutthroat warlord and the Outlands’ meanest mad-lass, is back and she’s coming into the Apex Games like a wrecking ball with an offensive playstyle. With enhanced shotgun proficiency, the ability to dislodge enemies behind cover, and a crushing Ultimate, aggressive players are going to love playing as Mad Maggie.

• Passive: Warlord's Ire
  
  Temporarily highlight enemies you’ve damaged. No movement speed penalty when wielding Shotguns.

• Tactical: Riot Drill
  Fire a drill that attaches to an obstacle and burns enemies on the other side.

• Wrecking Ball
  Throw a ball that releases speed-boosting pads and detonates near enemies.

BRAND NEW LIMITED-TIME MODE: CONTROL

Defiance kicks off with Control, a brand-new limited-time mode that delivers an adrenaline-fueled 9v9 experience where two teams fight to capture and control points on the map. Featuring the largest team sizes in Apex Legends to date, players will pre-select their loadouts, drop in, and for the first time ever have the opportunity to experience the rush of having the same Legends fighting side by side, creating thrilling moments that can only happen in Control. In this mode, death is not the end, as throughout the match players will be able to respawn and carry on the fight until one team earns enough points to be declared the winner. So get ready to experience the spectacle of 9v9 Legend combat when Control kicks off on February 8th. Check out the full blog from Designer Mark Yampolsky here.

OLYMPUS MAP UPDATE

Someone or something has hacked into Olympus’ Phase Runner, sending the floating city crashing down and creating destabilizations across the city that change the face of the map: perhaps forever. Players will experience a malfunctioning Olympus, with new terrain exposed and more POIs than ever. And that’s not all!

• Expanded map; spreading squads out more so the map’s center area (Labs/Estates) isn’t the only go-to combat zone each game and reducing the frequency of spontaneous 3rd-parties.

• Better rotational options to help players get around and out of dangerous chokepoints

• New interactive map toy and play spaces to help attract players into the new areas, creating fresh new experiences for Olympus

Check out the full blog from map designer, Alex Graner that goes into detail about what to expect from the Olympus Map Update.

Players in the regular Play Apex queue will drop exclusively into Olympus for the first week of the season, after which we’ll add Storm Point and Kings Canyon into the rotation.

STORM POINT UPDATES

Wildlife Update

It’s now been a full season since we introduced PvE into Battle Royal and while we were happy with how wildlife launched, we’ve seen that Prowlers were a bit too punishing and not quite rewarding enough. Additionally, we have seen some bad edge cases that create frustration for players that we’re hoping to address this season. We’ll go more in depth on the exact details and our reasoning behind them in another blog, but in short:

• Prowler damage reduced from 30 to 20 and reduced knockback force.
• Increased Prowler Nest completion reward from 90 to 150 crafting materials (250 total for the large Prowler Nest in the center of the map).Note: Crafting rewards are divided eveningly to all squadmates nearby at time of clearing the nest. All players (regardless of squad) in the area get a share of the 250 crafting material reward when the large Prowler Nest is cleared.
• Overhauled wildlife targeting rules to use damage as the primary factor which should help wildlife targeting feel more fair and less random.
• Introduced a targeting cap for Prowlers, so only 3 Prowlers will be able to target a player at any time.
• Prowler Den spawns are now disabled when there are two teams inside of the same Nest (except for the massive Prowler Nest at the center of the map).
• Prowlers are now neutral when outside the ring unless engaged in combat.
• Prowler Dens are now disabled outside the ring if the Prowler Camp is passive.
• Wandering Prowlers in the small Wildlife Nests have been reduced from 3 down to 2 and their wander radius is reduced by half until they are engaged in combat.
• Made some tweaks that should help squads clear Prowler Nests quicker.

• Gave a slight increase to high tier consumable drops on all wildlife.

Drop Ship Pathing.

While Storm Point has a relatively healthy spread of landing locations, we realized the typical drop ship logic often made the high northeast corner of the map particularly tough to land in. Rotating the distribution and moving the centerpoint slightly northeast should make Highpoint and Lightning Rod more accessible while still allowing players to land in the lower southwest portion if they desire.

Each image below shows 400 drop ship simulations, before and after the change:

WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT BALANCE

Supply Drop Rotation

The Alternator SMG returns to the ground loot this season and taking its place is the powerful mid-range energy Volt SMG.

Alternator SMG

• Removed disruptor rounds hop-up

Volt SMG

• Damage increased from 15 to 17
• Max mag size increased from 28 to 30

Hop Ups

Kinetic Feeder - Triple Take & Peacekeeper

Sliding with the Triple Take or Peacekeeper significantly speeds up choke time and automatically reloads rounds.

Hammerpoint Rounds - P2020, Mozambique & RE-45

• P2020
  • +50% unshielded damage
• Mozambique
  • +35% unshielded damage
• RE-45
  • +35% unshielded damage

Shatter Caps - 30-30 Repeater & Bocek Bow

• Passively affects hip-fire for both weapons
  • ADS remains precision shot
• No longer able to toggle on/off
• 30-30 pellet damage reduced from 8 to 7
• Bow pellet damage reduced 12 to 11

Triple Take

• Removing projectile growth from bullets
• Damage reduced from 23 to 21 per bullet

Dev Note

The Triple Take’s return to floor loot has been really positive, but it’s proving to be a bit ahead of the pack with its ranged performance. We’re eliminating the bullet growth it retained from its days as a sniper to pull it in line with other Marksman rifles.

VK-47 Flatline

• Damage reduced from 19 to 18 per bullet

Rampage LMG (Hotfix)

• Rampage damage reduced from 28 to 26
• Reduced number of shots during the Revved state from ~40 to ~34

Fully Kitted Rotation

• Added: RE-45, Triple Take, Peacekeeper, Prowler, Havoc
• Removed: Mastiff, 30-30 Repeater, R-301, CAR, Longbow

Weapons in Crafting

• VK-47 Flatline and Longbow DMR are now craftable for 30 mats at any crafting station.
• Weapons in crafting can not be found on the ground.
• Crafted weapons come with no attachments and two boxes of ammo

Dev Note

As we continue to introduce new weapons and loot into the game we must consider the impact it has on loot saturation and the ability to find specific pieces for loadouts. With this change we are able to keep weapons available but give our floor loot some breathing room.

Crafting

• Medkit price lowered from 20 to 15
• Kinetic Feeder added to crafting rotation

For all the bug fixes you can head here to check them out!