Apex Legends patch notes: new legend Loba, map changes, and more

(Image credit: EA/Respawn)

Apex Legends season 5 is live, the patch notes are in, and there's a bunch of changes (both big and small) dropping into the arena.

First up is the new season, Fortune's Favor, which brings the high society thief Loba and her translocating abilities into the mix. We've got a guide on Loba's abilities for you to check out here.

With a new season comes serious map changes, and Kings Canyon is getting a rework - it'll be the only map available for the next two weeks, so it's time to familiarize yourself with it. Both the Skulltown and Thunderdome areas of the map have fallen into the surrounding sea, with a new area called Salvage rising up in its wake. on the other side of the map, the Offshore Rig connects what used to be Relay and Wetlands (Wetlands has been replaced by the the excavation of something called the Capacitor, which leads to an underground path to Singh Labs. For even more details on all the map changes, head here.

The excavation of Kings Canyon has also unearthed charge towers - activate them and any Legend standing on the platform surrounding them will get a full ultimate charge.

For long-term activities, Apex Legends is now adding Season Quests which will run throughout season 5. Broken Ghost is the first available Quest in which you search for nine pieces of a relic that will piece together a story as you find them. You can learn more about Quests in EA's blog here.

Apex Legends patch notes: Season 5 Battle Pass

Apex Legends patch notes: character changes

There have been a bunch of adjustments to Apex Legends characters in the latest patch notes, some of which are pretty big. Mirage is becoming more of a helpful support character, Caustic's gas properties have changed, and Octane could see more use in the future.

See all the details below.

Mirage

Mirage is getting a full rework of all of his abilities. His tactical, Psych Out, will now let you gain control of the decoy, which mimic's Mirage's every move. Decoys now last 60 seconds and releasing a second decoy will remove the first.

Mirage's passive ability, Now you See Me, now adds cloaking while using a respawn beacon and reviving a teammate (who will also be cloaked). His ultimate, Life of the Party, will deploy a team of decoys that mimic his every move. It has a 60-second cooldown.

Bloodhound

Increased Sonar Detection in Eye of the Allfather from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
Decreased Eye of the Allfather Cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds.

Crypto

Crypto can now ping banners while in his drone to warn teammates that enemies are nearby.

Lifeline

Increased Lifeline bin ratio to 20%
Removed Knockdown Shields from Secret Compartment loot pool

Caustic

Friendly gas no longer slows teammates.
Caustic traps are no longer triggered from the other side of a door.

Octane

Launch pad cooldown reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds

Gibraltar

Dome shield duration reduced from 18 seconds to 12 seconds.

Pathfinder

The cooldown for Grappling Hook has been increased from 15 seconds to 35 seconds.

Apex Legends patch notes: weapon changes

The following weapons will be the only available as fully-kitted gold weapons during season 5.

Longbow DMR
Hemlok
Spitfire
EVA-8
RE-45

As for more granular weapon changes, we've got:

Mastiff

The Mastiff is being rotated out of the care package to a regular weapon with its power reduced accordingly
Reduced damage per pellet from 18 to 13
Reduced headshot multiplier from 2.0 to 1.25
Increased blast pattern distances for the outer pairs of pellets
Increased blast pattern scale ADS multiplier from 0.5 to 0.55
Reduced fire rate from 1.3 to 1.0
Reduced projectile size to be more in line with other regular shotguns
Increased shell count from 4 to 6
Increased projectile speed to standard shotgun speed

Peacekeeper

Peacekeeper is being rotated out of loot boxes and into the care package weapon slot with its power being increased accordingly
Tightened pellet spread pattern
Reduced rechamber time from 1.2 to 0.9
Reduced reload times from 2.65 to 2.45 base and 3.6 to 3.35 empty
Increased projectile size to improve consistency at close range

Alternator

Increased Mag size from 16 to 19.
Longbow DMRLevel 1 Extended mag is now 22, Level 2 is now 25, and Level 3 is now 27

RE-45

Increased damage from 11 to 12
Reduced reload time from 1.74 to 1.5 base and 2.12 to 1.95 empty

Havoc

Vertical recoil increased
Horizontal recoil slightly increased
Recoil on the first 2 shots increased

Longbow DMR

Headshot scale reduced from 2.15 to 2.1

Wingman

Headshot scale reduced from 2.1 to 2.0

Hop Ups

The Anvil Reciever has been vaulted (this makes me very sad)
In its place is a new Hop Up for the Longbow DMR and Wingman: Skullpiercer, which increases headshot scale

Apex Legends patch notes: bug fixes

Fixed various conditions causing prediction errors
Fixed looting in pillboxes being difficult around weapons
Fixed aiming speed during zooming lerp to be consistent with hipfire and ADS speed.
Fixed disabling Melee Target Compensation
Fixed Legend banners having a black box when having AA disabled
Fixed a condition where the third character model would be missing on screens with three Legend banners
Fixed sometimes erroneously pinging enemies while skydiving or in the plane
Fixed exploitable spots against Prowlers in Bloodhound Trial
Fixed Prowlers not attacking Gibraltar's Dome Shield
Fixed deathboxes sometimes not moving on the train
Fixed subtitles in Russian showing up as English in the Bloodhound Trial area
Fixed Havoc VFX while on the train
Fixed depth of field when selecting charms in the loadout menu
Fixed lighting on Legends sometimes being dark throughout the menus
Fixed tooltips not appearing correctly when highlighting items in the menus
Fixed the Charge Rifle beam shooting from the scope while using the Hard coded skin
Fixed melee not doing any damage when interrupting the Sentinel charge animation
Fixed Wingman having higher than normal hipfire accuracy while crouched
Fixed Golden Barrel attachment having more muzzle flash than intended
Stability fixes to reduce crashing and script errors
Crypto’s EMP now affects D.U.M.M.I.E. in the Firing Range
Fixed Revenant’s Death Totem being visible through smoke or gas
Fixed a few Pathfinder banner poses that caused corrupted art
Adjusted Octane’s Jump pad to make it harder to fall through cracks when deploying
Fixed Caustic's Ultimate not deploying when thrown under small surfaces
Fixed Bangalore’s smoke canisters getting stuck under the Train

Apex Legends patch notes: quality of life changes

Overhauled the Deathbox UI to compartmentalize loot better so you can find what you need faster
Crypto can now ping banners while in drone to warn teammates of nearby squads
Added voice over for pinging enemies who are reviving
Favorite option now available for Weapon Skins
Observer Highlights for Tournament Matches
Removed location based Weekly Challenges. These caused players to have mixed motivations from their squadmates, and didn’t work well with map rotation
Optimized CPU usage
Improved texture streaming quality on GPUs reporting less memory than advertised

For the full Apex Legends patch notes, head here.