Who is Catalyst in Apex Legends?

Season 15 of Apex Legends is now only weeks away, and it comes with a smorgasbord of new content. And what’s a new season without a new legend?

This time around, Apex is adding Catalyst to the fray, a defensive character with a soft spot for Boreas’ moon, Cleo, which also happens to be where players will be taking their Apex Games fights to next season.

There’s plenty of information to glean about the new character, as well as some leaks and rumors as to what her abilities will end up being.

Here’s everything you need to know about Catalyst in Apex.

All rumored Catalyst abilities in Apex Legends so far

Described as “an experienced terraformer and defensive conjurer” that uses ferrofluid to her advantage, Catalyst is a defensive legend coming to the game.

Catalyst’s abilities were previously leaked prior to season 13. But while that leak got the ferrofluid portion of Catalyst’s kit correct, her abilities have changed quite a bit since then, according to the games trailers and a now-pulled report on Catalyst’s abilities from Inverse.

Passive: Barricade

This passive ability allows Catalyst to reinforce doors in Apex, and essentially lock them for enemy players. When a door is barricaded with this ability, it cannot be opened, and must be destroyed if a player wants to get into the building which the door serves as an entryway to. The door will also be strengthened, and can withstand more damage than usual when barricaded. Catalyst can barricade two doors at a time, with oldest remaining barricade disappearing upon third use.

This ability was shown for the first time in the Eclipse gameplay trailer when the featured Catalyst reinforced a doorway while her Newcastle revived a squadmate, and added Piercing Spikes just in front of the door for good measure. The combined effect is making the doorway a deathtrap to get through.

Tactical: Piercing Spikes

Piercing Spikes is an ability that allows Catalyst to use her ferrofluid and turn it into spiky traps. These patches form spikes that will slow enemies and also damage them if they step on the patch. You can see Fuse getting caught in one of these patches of Piercing Spikes in the launch trailer. While these patches of ferrofluid are destructible, players will have to get close enough to them to see a glowing core to shoot out. Simply shooting at a patch of Piercing Spikes from a distance won’t destroy the tactical.

This ability should work as an excellent area denial tool in open space against legends without vertical movement abilities, as well as a means to secure a kill or two when lofted behind cover, trapping an enemy player.

Ultimate: Dark Veil

The ultimate might be of most interest to many players who are tired of being scanned through walls all the time: Dark Veil is a gigantic, semi-solid wall that prevents enemy scans from passing through it.

The wall also also obscures enemy vision completely, and will slow and blind any enemies that attempt to run through the wall. The wall does not seem to prevent bullets, ordinance, or other non-scan abilities from passing through it, meaning it won’t serve as a means of protection in the same way that Gibraltar and Newcastle’s tactical abilities do.

In the gameplay trailer, it does seem that the Dark Veil also interferes with players passing through it on ziplines as well, as a Seer at the end of the trailer appears to be knocked off of Broken Moon’s zip rail when passing through the wall.

All Catalyst lore in Apex Legends so far

Tressa Smith, who goes by Catalyst as her legend name, is a terraformer who took up residence on Cleo to help restore the moon. In her Stories from the Outlands, players got a glimpse of some of her backstory, which included the reveal that Catalyst is a trans character.

At some point in the past, Tressa and her friend Margo teamed up to sneak into a Hammond Robotics compound and try to put a stop to Hammond stripping the moon Cleo of its resources. It’s there that Tressa appears to interact with ferrofluid for the first time, fascinated by the way it moves and forms structures.

In the middle of their excursion inside the Hammond base, it’s revealed that Margo has a bomb she’s planning to detonate. While Tressa attempts to stop her, the two squabbling attracts the attention of robotic Spectre units, which capture Margo and force Tressa to flee, eventually destroying one with the help of Hammond’s ferrofluid. As Margo is led away, she detonates her bomb, leaving her fate uncertain to Catalyst.

Since then, it appears that Tressa pursued her interest in ferrofluid, becoming an expert in using it in her terraforming work and earning employment in Hope, the colony established on Cleo in the wake of the meteor impact that broke the moon. When the Apex games came to Cleo, however, she was fired from her job, as the workers on the moon were cleared out to make way for the Apex games. Instead of leaving, Tressa took on the Catalyst name to stay and fight on Cleo, as well as try to get back at Seer, who she seems to blame for all of this happening to the moon and to her.

This article will be updated as more information becomes available.