Apex Legends’ Aftermarket event is live with the Flashpoint LTM and Caustic’s heirloom

Apex Legends‘ Aftermarket Collection Event is live with a new limited-time mode, several cosmetics, significant balancing tweaks, and another heirloom. The festivities run until Oct. 20, but some of the changes—including the crossplay beta—will be available permanently.

The event brought in a new collection and the Flashpoint limited-time mode that’s reminiscent of “classic first-person shooters.” The patch also gave Caustic an heirloom, buffed Pathfinder and Loba, and nerfed Wraith and Bloodhound.

Flashpoint

The September Soiree brought a returning limited-time mode every week. Aftermarket just one-upped it with a completely new LTM, Flashpoint, that promises hectic, multi-squad firefights in a concentrated area.

Flashpoint will remove all healing items from the spawn pool. Instead, the primary way to heal will be Flash Points: specific areas around the map encircled in a restorative bubble. Staying on a Flash Point will regenerate health and shields, so that makes them a valuable location to all the squads on the map.

In addition, the ring will follow the rules for the Always Be Closing limited-time mode. The ring never stops closing, so staying on the move is part of the game. The loud hum of the ring is incentive enough to keep players on their toes and migrating to the nearest Flash Point.

Replicators are another valuable resource in the LTM. In addition to crafting weapons and attachments, players can spend their materials to create Phoenix Kits, the only way to heal that doesn’t involve standing on a probably crowded Flash Point.

Aftermarket Collection

Like other events, Aftermarket comes with dozens of new cosmetics that make for a diverse collection. A total of 24 rewards compose the Aftermarket collection and gathering them all yields the latest heirloom weapon for free. Some visuals don’t count toward completion, however.

Some skins have a clear racing theme. Gibraltar’s Blazin’ Hot visual makes him look like a Hot Rod, with flame decals on his clothes and an exhaust vent attached to his back. Others follow a different motif. Lifeline’s Breach and Clear dresses the combat medic in heist apparel, complete with night vision goggles. Most of the visuals will be available until Oct. 20, but skins for Bloodhound and Pathfinder will make a short appearance in the store.

Players can earn five free items as they complete challenges and progress through the event reward track, including a gun charm, a visual for Bangalore, and three gun skins. Similarly to the new cosmetics for Bloodhound and Pathfinder, the items in the free track don’t count toward the 24 needed to unlock the new heirloom set.

Caustic’s heirloom: Death Hammer

Apex‘s latest event also brings in a new heirloom, this time for the mad scientist himself. Caustic’s melee weapon skin is called Death Hammer, which is unsettlingly appropriate for the legend.

The heirloom is available once players finish the 24 cosmetics in the Aftermarket collection. After the event ends, it will move to the heirloom shop, where players can spend heirloom shards to pick a set of their choice. Heirlooms are the rarest items in Apex, however. Players are guaranteed one every 500 loot boxes, but their drop rates are abysmal.

Crossplay beta

The latest patch is finally delivering the long-anticipated crossplay. The feature is still in beta but will allow console players to matchmake with each other across all platforms, albeit on some conditions.

Users can party up with their friends on all supported platforms—Origin, Xbox, PlayStation 4, and eventually Steam—and use voice chat as normal. Console players will face off against other console players regardless of the platform, but PC users will only be paired with other PC users to “ensure that keyboard and mouse PC players are not being matched against console players.”

The matchmaking criteria changes if a console player parties up with a PC player. The squad will enter a PC lobby even if one of the players is on console. “This ensures that the console games don’t have PC players in them, but still allows for the console player to play with their PC friend if they opt-in,” according to EA’s website.

The feature is enabled by default, but players can opt out of crossplay at any time through the settings menu. Turning it off can result in longer queue times, however, since most players will likely keep it activated.

Balancing adjustments

Aftermarket is bringing more than new cosmetics or a limited-time mode. As usual, Respawn took the opportunity to deploy a handful of significant gameplay changes—including buffs to Pathfinder and Loba, as well as nerfs to Wraith and Bloodhound.

Pathfinder

Aftermarket overhauled Pathfinder’s tactical ability and brought in some necessary tweaks to his kit. The cooldown on Pathfinder’s grappling hook now varies based on distance traveled instead of a flat 35-second delay.

The cooldown can range from 10 to 35 seconds based on how far Pathfinder travels—from the moment he grapples to the moment he touches the ground again. Players can make shorter grapples more often, but going extra far also means that Pathfinder has to wait extra long to use his ability again.

The new cooldown starts from the moment Pathfinder lands, whereas the old delay began as soon as the grapple latched onto something. In certain situations, it can result in a longer cooldown than before the patch. It’s unclear if the discrepancy is intentional.

Loba

The next legend in line for buffs, Loba received a few tweaks to her Black Market Boutique. The ultimate now has greatly increased range and can steal loot from approximately 45 percent further away. Loba also starts a match with her ultimate half-full to make it easier to grab valuable items in the early parts of a game.

Wraith

Respawn took a different approach to balancing Wraith in Aftermarket. Instead of tweaking her kit, the developers decided to change the way she moves—more specifically, her running animations. Wraith’s old hunched-over sprint made her harder to hit, which compounds on her already small hitbox.

The new animations “are much more upright and expose a larger area of her body to gunfire,” which should mitigate the unintended bullet evasion with the old animation. The change likely won’t affect Wraith’s pick rate, though, since she’s been a dominant force since launch.

Bloodhound

Bloodhound’s kit also saw adjustments with the latest patch. The cooldown on their tactical increased to eight seconds (from six) when used during their ultimate to make it less oppressive. The delay outside of Beast of the Hunt remains the same, however.

“Against a competent BH, there would only ever be 2s during which you’re not scanned,” the patch notes read. “Changing it to 8s means you’ve got 4s of being revealed and 4s to reposition in between pulses.”

Update Oct. 6 10:17am CT: Although the patch launched early, the Flashpoint LTM is still unavailable and should go live at 12pm CT.

Update Oct. 6 12:08 pm CT: The Flashpoint limited-time mode is live.