An old Apex Legends weapon bug charges back into the game with latest update

New updates and adjustments inevitably mean new bugs appear in Apex Legends. This time, it’s not so much a new bug arriving to the game as it is an old one returning.

The development headache that is the charge-up mechanic in Apex is back, as players have discovered that since the Spellbound event began, they can charge a Sentinel without spending any of their shield cells while they’re wearing a Gold body shield. Sorry to say it, but it looks like the times of perma-charged Sentinels are back.

The original Reddit thread that uncovered the bug is now a removed post, but its discussion of this new version of the perma-charge weapon remains. Both the Rampage and the Sentinel have been disabled on multiple occasions in the past due to bugs and exploits players have found to charge them without the use of shield cells or thermite grenades and keep them that way.

Thankfully, this particular instance of the charge-up mechanic doesn’t mean that the Sentinel will just stay charged all the way through a game, as the charge still decays per shot. On the flip side, players don’t have to complete any sort of complicated process to charge the Sentinel for free. They just need to equip a Gold shield, and charging won’t cost them a single cell.

One Redditor posted the theory that since before the Spellbound update, the Gold shield granted players with Sentinels the ability to charge the gun up with one shield cell instead of two, and then the update made charging the Sentinel cost only one shield cell for all players regardless of their shield, this might not be as much of a bug as it is an obscure value in the game’s code that needed to be changed. Since the Sentinel will currently charge without a shield cell while wearing a Gold armor, and won’t consume a cell regardless of whether you have one or not in your inventory, the theory might have some validity to it. After all, there is no tricky exploit or specific series of steps players need to pull off in order to charge the Sentinel like there has been for Sentinel bugs in the past.

Regardless of the cause, however, the gun will most need to be adjusted quickly to account for there being no charge cost at all for players with Gold shields. Unless this was an unmentioned buff to Gold body shields that was left off the Spellbound event’s patch notes. And if that’s the case, the Gold shield just got a whole lot more interesting for sniper players.