Apex Legends season 13 lets you duke it out in the body of a giant dead monster
The new season launches May 13, adding in newcomer Newcastle and some PvE content.
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Apex Legends has shown off some gameplay for season 13, giving us a look at Newcastle in action, and revealing a new part of the map that's literally the dead body of a giant creature.
Respawn Entertainment released a cinematic trailer last week officially revealing the newest character Newcastle, but the developer has now given us a look at the man in action, as well as a big change that's coming to Storm Point. In the cinematic trailer, we saw the Legends taking down a giant, kaiju-like creature. Well, it turns out that part of Storm Point is now that thing's carcass, just to spice things up a bit.
According to Polygon who attended a media preview last week, lead level designer Jeff Shaw said it was designed to be "a big, stuff, loot piñata." As well as something to make it more of a competitive map. "We really wanted to do this additively, without removing anything that we felt was important," added Shaw. While it wasn't clear if the creature would be some kind of player vs environment task in the first trailer, it's now confirmed to definitely just be a map change.
The Downed Beast, as the point-of-interest is now known, sits between North Pad and The Mill, two quite valuable loot areas. There are four big wounds players can enter through to get in (yuck), or they can land on top of it via gravity cannons or ziplines. Things like tents and platforms set up by the Ecological Cleanup and Hazard Outreach team have been left behind, which players can use for cover, as well as acquire some gear. "We’re really hoping that this is going to pull some of the action away from Barometer," Shaw said.
We also saw in the cinematic trailer that there are these new security protocols, seemingly filled with some good loot. This one actually is a PvE addition, as teams can try to take down waves of Spectre robots over the course of a minute to try and get access to the weapons and gear inside. The door also shuts once this has been activated, meaning no one can get in or out.
Gameplay wise for Newcastle, there was no breakdown for how his actual abilities work, but it seems like they line up with what was shown in the previous trailer. He can throw down force fields wherever he likes to protect his allies, and there's an ability that involves him dragging another player with a small force field shield in front so they have time to heal. One of his other abilities that also summons a small shield seems to be some kind of ramming attack, which also will likely have some amount of defence.
Some new skins were also shown off too, with Newcastle getting one that kind of makes him look like Iron Man, and Fuse getting one that makes him look like a cyborg Arthur from Ghosts 'n Goblins.
Apex Legends: Saviors launches next week, May 10, on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.