Apex Legends Season 22 early patch notes: New map, major gameplay changes, more

Season 22 of Apex Legends won’t add a new character, but it touches just about every other aspect of the game, as well as introducing a new battle royale map, E-District, a new ‘Revival’ mode, and lots of weapon and Legend changes.

A new Legend is often the headline of a new season, but it’s now not uncommon for the devs at Respawn to take a break from adding a new character to instead focus on other aspects of Apex.

The new map instead takes the spotlight, but long-time players will be most intrigued by some of the gameplay changes, which include the addition of battle sense in all modes, and aim assist nerfs.

Here’s a rundown of the major changes coming in Season 22 of Apex Legends. The full patch notes will be released close to the season launch date on August 6.

Apex Season 22 early patch notes

New map: E-District

Described as “a cyberpunk playground,” this is a night-time map, “packed with a ton of verticality.”

While it’s set at night, the devs have ensured it is well-lit to maximize visibility. Some of the notable POIs include:

• Street Market, which features intense close-quarters combat.
• Neon Square: Inspired by Shibuya Center in Japan
• Stadium: An old Prowler race tracking turned into a residential community
• The Lotus: High-end luxury apartments

There is a new map feature here too, called Gravity Launcher, which is similar to Grav Cannons on Storm Point.

New mode: Revival

This new mode sounds very similar to Resurgence in Call of Duty: Warzone, and will be a trios takeover at the start of the season.

When you die, a respawn timer begins, and as long as one of your teammates is still alive, you will respawn. Damage and knocks will make you respawn faster too. In the final rings, the revival feature will be shut off.

Aim assist nerf

Aim assist is being nerfed for controllers on PC in crossplay lobbies. The developers conceded that aim assist is currently too strong, and so is being reduced by 25%.

Weapon changes

Here are just some of the weapon changes coming this season:

• Akimbo for Mozambique and P2020: Picking up two of these weapons allows you to dual-wield them. Any attachment you find is mirrored onto the second gun. With Akimbo, both guns are automatic, have an increased fire rate, and replace aiming down sights with tighter hip fire.
• LMGs: All LMGs now have a new Gun Shield hop-up – a front-facing shield similar to Gibraltar’s old passive, called Gunshield Generator. The shield can take 40 damage and has a short cooldown to regenerate once destroyed.
• Shotguns: Damage per pellet increased for Mastiff and Peacekeeper, but they fire fewer pellets.
• Havoc: Hip fire nerf
• Hemlock: reduced damage from 20 to 19, increased time between bursts, smaller white and blue mag size.
• Light ammo stacks increased from 60 to 72. Shotgun to 20, and Energy to 54. Magazine capacity increased for Light Amma guns, including the R310,
• Removing aim flinch from weapons and abilities, but not ring damage flinch

Respawn Entertainment

You can dual-wield the Mozambique and P2020 pistols.

Battle Sense

Battle sense is now coming to core BR modes, with enemy health bars, and highlights for enemies at close range, but not at long range.

There is also Health sense: a new feature that requires line of sight, and will show the enemy’s health bar. If it’s not your thing though, you’ll be able to toggle it off.

Legend changes

Respawn didn’t confirm the exact buffs and nerfs to specific Legends just yet, but we know that Rampart, Wattson, Vantage, and Crypto will all be getting some balancing tweaks.

They did confirm changes to Controller and Recon Legends generally though:

• Controller: Gain an extra 25 shield when in zone, and remote pick up can now remotely pick up charges.
• Recon: Increased survey beacon spawn rate, focused reveal of surroundings, which will be done five times but for a smaller radius. Threat vision granted to all recon legends, which is a bright red highlight similar to Bloodhound’s ult.

Looting

• Deathbox layout has been rearranged
• Midway through matches, all open loot bins will reset
• Adding two new bins: Rare Gold Bins, which contain better than usual loot, and one Mythic Bin in each match, which contains evo, gold weapons and even care package weapons, but these take longer to open and are marked on the map.

Respawn Entertainment

The new Mythic Bin in Apex Legends.

Ranked & Rumble

• Two ranked rumbles each season, the scoring format changed. You rank based on the 10 best matches, and regular ranked play is put on hold.
• Tuning for ranked: Larger changes for ranked coming in the future.
• New map will takeover two weeks.
• Reducing resets: Devs want the start of the season to be smooth, with tighter matches.
• RP value will dictate starting RP for the new season.
• Placement rp increased – 15 and above won’t lose RP
• Small adjustments RP on kills

New player experience 

• New player experience – welcome pass and challenges coming to help teach and reinforce skills for Apex. These will only be available for new accounts after shockwave, and they will gain access to starter legends through challenges.

Bot royale

• Replacing orientation matches is a new, smaller, faster version of battle royale, where all enemies are bots. All legends are usable. Of course, you can’t complete badges or challenges (except Welcome challenges), as this is just for learning and practicing the fundamentals of Apex

Those are all the main changes we know about so far for Season 22 of Apex Legends.

The full patch notes will release closer to launch, and include exact details on many of these changes. But, it’s clear already that Respawn is aiming to address many of the player base’s concerns with this update.