Apex Legends Season 25 Patch Notes: New Legend, Arenas Mode, And Progress On Major Audio Bugs

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Season 25 features some explosive new twists.

Apex Legends Season 25: Prodigy is introducing some major changes to the game–including the first new playable Legend to hit the game’s roster since Alter showed up last May. But there’s more to the battle royale’s new season than character development, as Prodigy’s launch includes new meta changes, exploding Bocek bow arrows, and the long-awaited return of a fan-favorite limited-time mode: Arenas.

Respawn has just released this season’s patch notes, detailing all of the new content coming to the game when Season 25: Prodigy launches on Tuesday, May 6 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Keep scrolling for a play-by-play of what to expect from the new season and a closer look at the Apex Games’ latest Legend, an eagle-eyed archer named Sparrow.

New Legend: Sparrow

He may be a Recon Legend, but he’s got the moves of a Skirmisher.

Introduced via the Prodigy Anthem trailer, Sparrow is shown to be a member of a bounty hunter clan called the Clessidra Rossa. In fact, bounty hunting is the family business. But after a falling out over Sparrow’s reckless behavior saw him cast out by his family and his clan, he was invited to join the Apex Games by Titanfall 2 baddie Kuben Blisk. Blisk always seems to be lurking in the shadows at the precise moment when an especially skilled combatant’s life falls apart, leaving them no choice to join the Apex Games. Coincidence? Knowing Blisk, probably not.

Sparrow’s skills as an archer and Recon-class Legend with a powerful set of movement abilities make for an especially interesting combo, rewarding both precision and risk-taking. Sparrow’s full ability set is listed below:

• Callsign: Sparrow
• Real Name: Enea Davide Guarino
• Age: 20
• Home World: Psamathe
• Legend Class: Recon
• Tactical Ability (Tracker Dart): Sparrow shoots a tracking device from his gauntlet to reveal enemies who walk within the Tracker Dart’s line of sight. These darts can also activate Survey Beacons from a distance.
• Passive Ability (Double Jump): While airborne, Sparrow can execute another jump. Jumping while climbing will launch Sparrow up the wall. He can also carry additional arrows and Explosive Arrows for the Bocek Compound Bow.
• Ultimate Ability (Stinger Bolt): Sparrow shoots a large arrow that anchors where it lands. After charging up, it will shock anyone within its range, causing damage and slowing down opponents it hits.

Arenas returns for a limited time

It’s time for some good old-fashioned 3v3.

Arenas–the once-permanent 3v3 game mode that was later removed from Apex Legends altogether–is making its comeback in Season 25. Sadly, it will only be available as a limited-time mode, so players who want to get a taste of the good old days will want to mark their calendars, as 3v3 Arenas will only be available from May 6 to June 23. Respawn also has plans for a 1v1 Arenas LTM variant, which is scheduled to arrive sometime around the season’s midpoint.

For more information about the return of Arenas, Sparrow’s skills on the battlefield, and all things Season 24, check out our recent interview with the Apex Legends team.

Audio and anti-cheat

Did someone call tech support?

Respawn is making some quality-of-life changes to Apex this season and is asking for community feedback on the game’s anti-cheat and its well-known audio issues.

“Our ongoing work against teaming has continued to have a positive impact on bad behaviour, primarily in Ranked,” Respawn shared in a recent blog post. “We’ve also ramped up efforts combating bot activity performed by automating certain devices, and a decrease in nefarious bot activity should already be noticeable in your matches by the time you read this. This population may be small, but their actions can still disrupt your time in the Outlands and we’re continuing to target actions against these players to ensure that every match is worthwhile. Finally, we wanted to thank you for the feedback on our mid-season addition of Report Action Feedback. Please continue to submit in-game reports as they do work both in identifying cheaters and the impact they’re having in your matches.”

As for audio issues, as of Season 25, Respawn is implementing a new audio bug reporting system in the hopes of improving the game’s long-running issues with important sounds like enemy footsteps being dropped when too many environmental sounds are triggered at the same time.

“We will now look out for common symptoms of audio issues (ex. footstep audio events being dropped excessively) throughout your matches,” the studio explained. “When we detect an abnormally large amount of these situations with in-game audio, we will occasionally offer you the option of uploading a detailed report containing everything our audio engine did throughout the course of your match.”

Weapons and loot

Season 25 features some serious changes to Apex’s weapon meta, including explosive arrows.

When it comes to more standard seasonal changes, like Season 25’s loot and weapon rotation, players can look forward to the Bocek Compound Bow and Havoc returning to the floor loot pool, with the Triple Take replacing them as Season 25’s Care Package weapon. Additionally, the Bocek, Hemlock, Longbow, Mastiff, and Wingman are all getting the Gold/Legendary-tier weapon treatment this season, with all the bells, whistles, and deadly weapon attachment that Legendary status entails. The Bocek in particular is getting some serious love with a deadly new ammo type: Explosive Arrows.

Arsenals are also getting tweaked. Prior to the mid-match Supply Bin lot reset, light, heavy, and energy Arsenals will now give two blocks of ammo with each pickup, and all Arsenal ammo will respawn after 20 seconds, up from the previous 10-second ammo respawn rate. After the mid-match loot reset, enhancing one’s weapon will provide players with at least two attachments for that weapon, and ammo at all Arsenals will begin to respawn every 10 seconds, granting a full stack of ammo each time. A slight visual flare has also been added to indicate an Arsenal has been reset.

Legends

Though still deadly, Ash’s abilities have been slightly defanged this season.

When it comes to Legends, the biggest changes of the season are mainly hitting Assault-class Legends, Skirmisher-class Legends, and Ash. Assault-class Legends’ Battle Surge ability has been nerfed significantly. It no longer scans for enemies when a shield cracks, the health bar is only visible for 3 seconds (down from 4 last season), and the movement speed boost now only applies while sprinting during the active Battle Surge window.

“The scan on shield crack specifically felt like a step too far in a world where Sparrow will be bringing in a powerful scan ability,” Respawn said of the decision to dial back Battle Surge’s power.

As for Skirmishers, these movement-based Legends will no longer gain a Tactical Ability charge upon knocking down an enemy.

“We like rewarding Skirmishers for playing aggressively with health regen on knocks, but found the extra Tactical charge had uneven results,” Respawn explained. “It didn’t help some Legends and interfered with upgrades that provide extra charges for others. Ultimately, we felt that this belongs better in the upgrade tree (like Pathfinder’s new Level 3 upgrade!) rather than in the class perks.”

After heavily advertising Ash’s Season 24 buffs, Respawn is now walking back some of her power in Season 25. Ash’s passive Predator’s Pursuit ability, which previously allowed her to ping enemy locations on the map after scanning the Death Box of one of their victims, has been removed. As for why, Respawn says, “We love that players are having fun with Ash and we want to tweak her balance without removing the parts of her kit that players are enjoying. Predator’s Pursuit feels redundant now that she has her new dash passive, and is another form of intel-gathering that competes with Sparrow.”

The game’s most recent hotfix also hit Ash with a slight nerf, increasing the time it takes for her Phase Breach ability to travel when thrown. Phase Breach’s maximum-distance travel time has been increased from 1.4 seconds to 2.5 seconds, and its minimum-distance travel time has been increased from 0.3 seconds to 0.5 seconds.

Map rotation

If you want a taste of Kings Canyon, you’ll only find it in Mixtape Mode.

Season 25’s map is listed below:

Pubs & Ranked:

• Olympus
• Storm Point
• World’s Edge

Mixtape (May 6 – June 23 schedule):

• Control: Lava Siphon, Thunderdome, Labs, Production Yard
• Gun Run: Estates, Monument, Thunderdome, Skull Town
• TDM: Thunderdome, Skull Town, Estates, Fragment

Full patch notes

Sparrow’s ability to double-jump and wall-jump means his opponents will have to keep their eyes on the skies.

The Season 25: Prodigy patch notes are listed in full below:

PATCH NOTES

BALANCE UPDATES

Care Package Rotation

• Bocek Compound Bow and Havoc return to the floor (details below)
• Triple Take enters the Care Package (details below)

Gold Weapon Rotation

• Bocek Compound Bow, Hemlok, Longbow, Mastiff, Wingman

GAME UPDATES

Arsenals

• Added VO for pinging and interacting with Arsenals
• Before Loot Bin resets:
  • Light, heavy, and energy Arsenals now give two blocks of ammo with each pick-up
  • Ammo at all Arsenals now takes 20s to respawn (was 10s)
• After Loot Bin resets:
  • Enhancing your weapon will now give at least two attachments
  • Added a slight flare to the model to show the Arsenal has reset
  • Ammo at all Arsenals only takes 10s and grants a full stack of the ammo

Dev Note: We’re really pleased with Arsenals and are excited with how players have weaved them into their gameplay. These adjustments are designed to smooth out the early game by providing a little more ammo without fully replacing the need to scavenge the area and increase their relevancy in the later stages of the game.

LEGENDS

Assault Class

• Battle Surge
  • Removed scan on shield crack
  • Healthbar now lingers for 3s (was 4s)
  • Move speed boost now only applies while sprinting during the active window

Dev Notes: Assault Legends have remained popular and powerful throughout Takeover. There’s a lot of utility stacked on this class, and the scan on shield crack specifically felt like a step too far in a world where Sparrow will be bringing in a powerful scan ability.

Skirmisher Class

• Charged Knock: removed Tac charge gained on knock

Dev Notes: We like rewarding Skirmishers for playing aggressively with health regen on knocks, but found the extra Tac charge had uneven results. It didn’t help some Legends and interfered with upgrades that provide extra charges for others. Ultimately, we felt that this belongs better in the upgrade tree (like Pathfinder’s new Level 3 upgrade!) rather than in the class perks.

Sparrow

Set your targets on this new Legend with our dedicated dev blog here.

• New Recon Legend
• Abilities
  • Passive: Double Jump
    • Press jump while in the air to jump again
    • Pressing jump while climbing will launch Sparrow up the wall
    • Carry additional arrows and explosive arrows for the Bocek
  • Tactical: Tracker Dart
    • Shoot a tracker from your gauntlet that will reveal enemies who walk within its line of sight
    • These darts can also be used to activate Survey Beacons from afar
  • Ultimate: Stinger Bolt
    • Shoot a large arrow that will anchor where it lands. After it charges up, it will shock anyone within its range, causing damage and slowing any opponent it hits.
• Upgrades: Level 2
  • Extra Traps: gain an additional Tactical charge and +2 traps in world
  • Hunt Target: Sparrow gains a speed boost when running towards a marked enemy
• Upgrades: Level 3
  • Alternate Mode: Ult now has 3 charges that fire fewer pulses in a smaller radius
  • Life Siphon: Sparrow’s health and shields are recovered if enemies are damaged by his Ult

Ash

• Predator’s Pursuit: removed Death Box minimap locations/pings
• Previous hotfix
  • Increased Ult max distance travel time to 2.5s (was 1.4s)
  • Increased Ult min distance travel time to 0.5s (was 0.3s)

Dev Notes: We love that players are having fun with Ash and we want to tweak her balance without removing the parts of her kit that players are enjoying. Predator’s Pursuit feels redundant now that she has her new dash passive and is another form of intel-gathering that competes with Sparrow.

Conduit (Previous Hotfix)

• Increased Tac health regen per tick to 4 (was 3)

Mirage (Previous Hotfix)

• Increased the number of decoys created during Ult to 6 (was 5)

Pathfinder

• Grappling Hook: cooldown now variable, ranging from 10-30s depending on distance traveled (was flat 30s)
• Zipline Gun
  • Integrated Zipline Zen upgrade into base
  • Damage mitigation increased to 50% (was 25%)
• Upgrades: Level 3
  • Feeling Zippy: gain a second Zipline Gun charge (replaces Zipline Zen)
  • Grapple God: gain a second Grappling Hook charge (replaces Grapple Cooldown+)

Dev Notes: “Remember me, friends. I may kill you.”

Seer (Previous Hotfix)

• Decreased the time for Tac to hit targets to 0.8s (was 1.4s)
• Decreased the time for Tac to finish to 0.9s (was 1.0s)

AMMO & ATTACHMENTS

GOLD SNIPER STOCKS

• New stock tier added: usable with all Sniper and Marksman weapons
  • No movement penalty while a weapon with a Gold Sniper Stock is drawn

SNIPER STOCKS

• Marksmans Only
  • Improved ADS in and out speed bonus for all levels
  • Improved raise and lower speed bonus for all levels

HOP-UPS

• Boosted Loader removed from floor loot
• Skull Piercer added to floor loot
  • Can be equipped by 30-30 Repeater, Longbow, Wingman
• Gun Shield Generator
  • No longer usable with Devotion and L-Star
  • Can now be used with Hemlok
• Accelerator
  • Removed from P2020, Volt, and Wingman
  • Added to Bocek Compound Bow, Devotion, Mastiff, and Sentinel
  • Previous Hotfix: Ult charge from knocks and assists reduced from to 20% (was 30%)

WEAPONS

AR

Havoc Rifle [Floor Loot]

• Damage decreased to 19 (was 21)
• Increase hipfire spread
• Recoil increased
• Selectfire removed

Hemlok Burst AR (Previous Hotfix)

• Increased headshot damage by 2
• Increased mag sizes
  • Base increased to 21 (was 18)
  • White increased to 23 (was 21)
  • Blue increased to 27 (was 24)

LMG

Devotion LMG

• New perk: equipping a purple tier barrel, stock, and mag will turbocharge the Devotion, reducing its spin-up time
• Improved the scaling with high tier barrels
  • Blue: improved stability and recoil control (equivalent to old Purple)
  • Purple: advanced stability and recoil control
• Improved the scaling with high tier stocks
  • Blue: improved handling and reload speeds (equivalent to old Purple)
  • Purple: advanced handling and reload speeds
• Increased purple mag capacity to 52 (was 48)

Dev Note: The Devotion has been feeling a tad clunky and a bit too slow in this meta, so we’ve taken a big swing at how it scales with attachments. It now continues to live up to that late game monster fantasy it’s always had. By embedding the turbocharger feature behind a fully decked out Devotion, we’ve made its loot chase more exciting and rewarding than ever.

L-STAR EMG (Previous Hotfix)

• Increased vertical and horizontal movement in the recoil pattern
• Significantly reduced projectile size

MARKSMAN

Bocek Compound Bow [Floor Loot]

• Can also be found on Sniper Arsenals
• Added Sniper stocks as an accepted attachment
• Uses its own reserve of 40 arrows, similar to a Care Package weapon
  • Arrows shot into the world can be retrieved to replenish supply
  • Arrows shot into players can be retrieved from top of Death Box (4 max)
  • Arrows cannot be found in floor looting
• Max charge damage decreased to 55 (was 75)
• Decreased rate of fire
• Shattercaps removed
• Frag Grenades can be used to energize the Bocek with explosive arrows
  • Must fully draw in order to fire an explosive arrow
  • Explosive arrows will stick into the world or a player on hit
  • Explosive arrow on hit damage reduced to 40 (headshot: 64)
  • Explosive arrows will explode in a 5m radius, dealing 25 extra damage after a 2s delay

Dev Note: Explosions are cool.

Triple Take [Care Package]

• Damage per bullet increased to 23 (was 22)
• Increased rate of fire
• Choke speed significantly increased
• Gun Shield Generator added

PISTOL

P2020

• Previous Hotfix: Decreased damage to 24 (was 25)
• Magazine size reduced at all tiers:
  • Base: decreased to 8 (was 10)
  • White: decreased to 9 (was 11)
  • Blue: decreased to 10 (was 12)
  • Purple/Gold: decreased to 11 (was 14)

Wingman

• Slightly increased rate of fire
• Added laser sights as an accepted attachment

Dev Note: Lasers are cool.

SHOTGUN

EVA-8

• Greatly increased rate of fire at base and all bolt tiers
• Damage per pellet reduced to 6 (was 8)

Dev Note: The EVA-8 has been a particularly strong secondary weapon recently, but instead of just nerfing its damage we wanted to take this opportunity to realign with its identity as the fast auto-shotty. We’ve re-worked its damage profile into rapid fire blasts with reduced damage.

SMG

All SMGs (Previous Hotfix)

• Increased headshot damage by 1

Volt SMG (Previous Hotfix)

• Improved hipfire values by normalizing it to the other SMGs

SNIPER

Charge Rifle

• Increased limb damage to 0.9 (was 0.7)

Longbow

• Increased limb damage to 0.8 (was 0.7)

Sentinel

• Increased limb damage to 0.9 (was 0.7)

Dev Note: We found the recent nerf to sniper limb damage to be a bit too punishing. Landing those long range shots should feel rewarding so we’re bumping back up the limb damage to help snipers feel more consistent and useful.

MAPS

Pubs & Ranked

• Olympus
• Storm Point
• World’s Edge

Mixtape

• May 6-June 23, 2025
  • Control: Lava Siphon, Thunderdome, Labs, Production Yard
  • Gun Run: Estates, Monument, Thunderdome, Skull Town
  • TDM: Thunderdome, Skull Town, Estates, Fragment

MODES

LTM: Arenas (May 6-May 19, 2025)

• Arenas returns, play the classic mode on fan favorite maps Overflow, Drop-Off, and Encore
• New round tunings, first team to win 3 rounds wins the match
• Original tunings and mechanics but updated to include weapons and Legends that released since Arenas was last active
• No Legend perks or upgrades, buy your loadout and fight in intense 3v3 Deathmatch combat

LTM: Arenas (May 20-June 23, 2025)

• Arenas refresh with updated tunings and mechanics that allow players to focus on combat, firepower, and fresh strategies
• Overflow, Drop-Off, and Encore maps return with updated traversal options to get you moving
• Every player is given the meds they need for the round free of charge, Supply Bins have been removed from the maps
• Each weapon can only be purchased once, try new combinations and plan your loadouts accordingly
• Rounds 2 and 4 feature discounted weapons to help you experiment with powerful new loadouts
• All Legends have a 1 Round cooldown on their Ults, and store economy and Ring have been tuned
• Care Packages have been boosted with Armor, select Boost Kits, and a couple surprise weapons

Bot Royale

A difficulty selector will be available to all players shortly after the release of S25, allowing players to test their skills against various levels of Apex Bots. Access and adjust this setting during the match to update the Apex Bots difficulty level.

• “Auto” option attempts to adapt the Apex Bots to what is known about your skill and is the default setting at the start of every match
• The difficulty selector can only be updated by the squad leader
• The difficulty selector can be accessed via the “Customize Bot Royale” tab in the player’s inventory menu OR via the Customize Bot Royale button in the in-game menu

RANKED

Start of Season Placement

• The starting Ranked tier and division is now based on your hidden skill value from previous Ranked seasons
  • If no skill value exists for Ranked, the Unranked Trios skill value is used to set initial placement
• The rule that reset any player that skipped a season of Ranked back to Bronze IV has been removed and all initial placements are based on skill value

Ranked Ladders (coming later this split)

• When a Ranked Ladder is active, all players in Ranked will compete on a personal skill-based leaderboard for bonus rewards
• Your best 10 RP scores during the Ladder will be counted for your leaderboard position, which will determine your final placement and rewards when the Ladder ends. Your lowest score will always be replaced by a higher RP score, so additional matches are beneficial
• 10 Ranked matches must be completed to be placed on the leaderboard and to qualify for Ladder rewards
• All Ranked play continues as normal, allowing promotion and demotion as normal

Ranked Challenges (rolling out over this split)

• Reward requirement: all players must now play a minimum number of Ranked matches before they can earn end-of-season Ranked rewards based on their highest tier earned.
• Ladder Champion: players who reach champion a minimum number of times in the same split will gain access to the Ladder Champion Dive Trail for a limited time:
  • Granted at the start of the next split and can be used for the rest of that split
  • Removed at the end of the split unless the challenge has been completed again

Dev Notes: Tight matchmaking is still a primary focus for the team, especially in the context of Ranked. The new way in which we assign starting tier and division is a step towards stabilizing the start of each Ranked season and ensuring that higher-skilled players have extremely limited access to lower-skilled lobbies. A player’s skill and their RP value can be very misaligned and are moving more towards getting and keeping those values much closer. Work will continue to address mid and late season lobby skill-mixing.

BUG FIXES

• Blocked doors should no longer occasionally open towards the player
• Certain POIs should now list the correct Arsenals
• Control: weapons should no longer occasionally swap after upgrading
• Dropship countdown will no longer end before players get in
• Fixed an issue with the 2x-4x sight on the G7 scout Reactive skins
• Gold Loot Bins once again spawn loot as they should
• Sprinting out of mantle should no longer cause inconsistent sprint speeds depending on settings
• Storm Point: fixed some issues with the ring VFX sometimes disappearing

LEGENDS

• Alter
  • Fixed rare issue where you could shoot while phased after using a Void Siphon
  • Portal should no longer be created for an enemy that died while being summoned by the Void Nexus
• Conduit: fixed crash with Passive when allies disconnected in certain states
• Lifeline: D.O.C. should once again deploy sans the broken targeting state (Previous Hotfix)
• Loba: Heat Shade skin is no longer too visible at a distance
• Mirage
  • Cloak while healing should no longer occasionally end early when exiting a Lifeline Halo
  • Ult cloak should no longer end early when immediately reviving an ally
• Wattson: Passive once again recharges extra shields given by Controller class perk

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Firing Range: Meow…
• Legend Locker
  • Added additional info panel to some screens
  • Added sorting ability to some screens: default, rarity, owned, and alphabetical
• Lifeline: reduced the intensity of D.O.C.’s teleport trail to reduce visual clutter
• Previous Battle Pass Reactive items are now available in the Exotic store
• “Progressed and Complete” challenges in Match Summary now show up to 15 challenges (was 5)
• Reduced the size and frequency of the Accelerated Weapon screen effects to be less obstructive
• Slightly reduced the amount of time you are locked out of ADS after charging a Sentinel
• Vantage: moved energizing Sniper’s Mark’s sniper with an Ult Accelerant to “reload”

AUDIO

• Fixed rare cases where “Gameplay Volume when Spectating” would be applied during regular gameplay
• Fixed a rare issue where players situated uphill would briefly have occlusion filtering applied
• Reduced volume of Pathfinder grapple for player (enemy audio not affected)
• Revenant wall climb footsteps clearer in the mix
• Slight reduction of Thermite volume over time at distance
• Slight reduction in volume for Horizon’s Black Hole relative to FOV

GRAPHICS

• Storm Point updated to use a modern GPU-driven terrain rendering system.
  • Players may not notice the difference since the overall map content has not been changed, but this system improves CPU rendering time, fixes lighting artifacts throughout the map, and allows for much greater texture fidelity through virtual texturing
• Xbox One and Playstation 4 have been migrated to the Rendering Hardware Interface (RHI), which is now being used on all platforms. As a result, Xbox One and Playstation 4 leverage the same multithreaded rendering architecture as PC and current-gen consoles.
• PC
  • Additional improvements to the framerate stability with texture streaming enabled
  • Fixed an issue that could cause freezes or black screens for some players
  • Fixed an issue that could lead to incorrect GPU timings for a small number of players, which would cause blurry resolutions when “Adaptive Resolution FPS Target” is enabled.
  • Improved performance of loading asset data onto the GPU (this can fix stutters and issues with missing models for some players).

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