Season 16 of Apex Legends—also known as Revelry—is launching on Feb. 14. The entire season is a celebration of Apex, taking the game’s fourth anniversary as an opportunity to flood players with content that both celebrates its past and builds the foundations for its future. This includes some big changes coming to the class system and a new weapon for the first time in over a year.
Most notably though, Apex is not going to be receiving a new legend this season. This is a first for Apex, as every season since the very first has added a legend to the existing roster as a major part of its content schedule. With Respawn never deviating from the norm like this, players are understandably questioning the reasoning behind it, but the developers made it clear at a recent press event that it was an important break to take.
Why Apex doesn’t have a new legend in season 16
In season 16, Apex is taking a wide balance pass at its legend classes and some popular weapon archetypes. With the reworks to the classes specifically having some major implications for the meta in future seasons, Respawn realized that adding a new legend into the mix at the same time could lead to a chaotic sandbox.
“Because of all these changes, we’re pausing on releasing a new legend this season, so everyone can learn and master the new meta,” explained Evan Nikolich, Apex’s Design Director. “Don’t worry though, we still have new legends coming in future seasons. We wanted to use Revelry as a chance to really dig deep and focus our attention on enhancing the core experience of Apex that’s kept players coming back over the last four years.”
Revelry is clearly the start of a major shift from Apex development into evolving the foundations of the game to better match the current skill and state of the playerbase it has. Once the big changes it introduces have a chance to settle, and any tweaks or updates can be implemented as needed, the team at Respawn will no doubt return to the usual content drops of a new legend each season.
