Here are the Apex Legends season 20 patch notes

Apex Legends is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a huge season 20 update, which is bringing changes to the entire legend roster and more to revolutionize the battle royale.

The season launch trailer dropped on Monday, Feb. 5 before a gameplay preview popped up the same day to showcase direct examples of the new perks system, an upcoming limited-time mode, and the newest Apex map set to join the Mixtape playlist. Here’s everything we know about the Apex season 20 Breakout update.

Apex Legends Breakout patch notes: All buffs, nerfs, and changes for season 20

Legend Armor and Shield Cores

Evo armor has been reworked: Gone are the days of dropping armor on the ground. Instead, players level up their personal legend armor and can loot Shield Cores off of Death Boxes, which only provide a temporary health boost before returning to their current level’s max capacity.

To upgrade their shields, players can traditionally deal damage or earn Evo points from contextual battle royale actions:

• Damage
• Knockdowns and assists (Earn additional Evo points when knocking players of a higher shield level)
• Finishers
• Squad wipes
• Revives
• Respawns
• Class interactions (Recon Survey Beacons, Controller Ring Consoles, etc.)
• World interactions (Defeating Wildlife, Completing Trials on World’s Edge, etc.)
• EVO Caches (Found in care package drops and map vaults, awards one full level)
• EVO Harvesters (Found naturally like crafting materials, awards 400 EVO points)

Legend Upgrades

Instead of one new legend debuting in season 20, Breakout features new personal perks for all 26 playable characters, which are tied to the new legend armor system. Players are given a choice between two perks when reaching both Blue and Purple shield levels, allowing quick strategy adaption and a unique legend loadout each match.

Legend upgrades will be limited to battle royale modes, and not be present in the Mixtape playlist. Players excited to find out the newest buffs to their favorite characters can find the full list of legend perks here.

Legend balance updates

Conduit received multiple changes after her debut season, due to the longstanding power of both her tactical and ultimate abilities. Multiple other legends have also been balanced with the new legend upgrades system in mind, alongside several quality-of-life animation and interaction updates for the biggest characters.

• Heavy-Rig legends (Gibraltar, Caustic, Pathfinder, Newcastle, Revenant)
  • Now use medium-rig first-person movement animations
  • Actual game speeds have not changed, these legends will feel less sluggish when running
• Support legends
  • Extended Supply Bin contents have been improved
• Ballistic
  • Sling: Sling weapons now have all White attachments while equipped
  • Tempest: effect radius for ally range has been increased to 90m (was 13m)
• Bloodhound
  • Tracker: Raven scan’s Ult Charge is now gated behind the Hunting Ravens upgrade
• Catalyst
  • Dark Veil:
    • Lifetime decreased to 15s (was 25s)
    • Length decreased to 40m (was 55m)
• Conduit
  • Radiant Flash
    • Cooldown increased to 26s (was 21s)
    • Temporary Shield generation rate decreased to 15HP/s (was 20HP/s)
    • Temporary Shield generation time increased to 9s (was 8s)
  • Energy Barricade
    • Mine duration reduced to 45s (was 60s)
    • Mine HP reduced to 200HP (was 250HP)
    • The distance at which mines are removed when deployed too close to one another has been increased by ~100 percent
• Crypto
  • Surveillance Drone
    • Speed of drone recall has been increased slightly
    • Transitions going in and out of drone are now faster
• Horizon
  • Gravity Lift: cooldown increased to 25s (was 20s)
• Lifeline
  • In modes with Upgrade Cores enabled, Lifeline’s Care Package now has a 50/50 chance to drop an extra piece of smart equipment (vs. large consumable) instead of an armor
• Mad Maggie
  • Wrecking Ball
    • Will no longer be destroyed on first enemy hit
    • Instead, the Wrecking Ball will trigger an explosion then keep going, allowing for a second explosion to trigger later
    • The same player cannot be hit again by the ball for two seconds after first impact
    • Players can only be affected by the shellshock and knockback effects once
    • Will now bounce through devices it hits and destroys
• Octane
  • Jump Pad: Audio falloff of double-jump has been adjusted to be slightly less audible from long distances
• Pathfinder
  • Insider Knowledge
    • Scanning Care Packages now awards 50 percent Ult Charge (was 100 percent) and 15 seconds Ult Cooldown (was 10 seconds)
    • This also applies to Ring Console or Survey Beacon scans

Weapon balance updates

The 30-30 Repeater has dominated the competitive scene through the past two years of the ALGS due to its long-range damage, efficient ammo economy, and extra utility like its fast reload time compared to other marksman weapons.

Heading into season 20, the 30-30 receives the hardest weapon nerfs, which are directly aimed at shaking up the competitive meta. Additional changes include heavy nerfs to SMGs and their assorted attachments, which also dominate the top five weapons picked at the ALGS.

• 30-30 Repeater
  • Base damage reduced to 39 (was 42)
  • Ammo capacity
    • Base capacity unchanged (six)
    • White Magazine reduced to seven (was eight)
    • Blue Magazine reduced to eight (was 10)
    • Purple & Gold Magazine reduced to 10 (was 12)
  • Skullpiercer headshot multiplier reduced to 2.0 (was 2.1)
  • Dual Loader removed as an integrated Hop-Up, now only loads one shell per reload
  • Marksman Stock reload speed bonus normalized to match other sniper weapons
  • Reloading three shells in a row now increases reload speed by 20 percent for the remainder of the reload
• EVA-8 (Moved from ground loot to Care Package)
  • Damage reduced to six (was seven)
  • Fire rate increased to three (was 2.4)
  • Recoil reduced to better match the much faster fire rate
  • Hammer Points: 20 percent damage increase against flesh (+1 damage)
  • Gold Shotgun Bolt: shells reloaded on slide increased to two (was one)
    • Note: this change only affects the Care Package EVA-8
• Hemlok
  • Damage reduced to 20 (was 21)
  • Hipfire spread increased
  • Spread delay increased to 0.28 (was 0.21)
• L-STAR
  • Can no longer equip Barrel Attachments
• Prowler (Moved from Care Package to ground loot)
  • Reverted to non-Care Package version
    • Damage decreased to 15 (was 16)
    • Select Fire Hop-Up removed
  • Burst delay increased to 0.28 (was 0.24)
  • Spread delay increased to 0.28 (was 0.15)
• R-99
  • ADS vertical and horizontal recoil increased
• R-301
  • Hipfire spread reduced
• SMG Ballistics
  • Projectile gravity increased across all SMGs
  • Projectile launch speed reduced across most SMGs (Prowler unchanged)
• 1x Digital Threat
  • Can no longer be equipped to SMGs
  • Spawn rates reduced by 20 percent
• Laser Sights
  • Spread multipliers reduced
  • White Laser Sight adjusted to x0.9 (was x0.8)
  • Blue Laser Sight adjusted to x0.8 (was x0.6)
  • Purple Laser Sight adjusted to x0.7 (was x0.4)

Weapon Rotation

• EVA-8 moves to Care Package
  • Prowler returns to standard ground loot
• Gold Weapon Rotation
  • R-301, RE-45, Mastiff, Devotion, 30-30 Repeater

Crafting 2.0 Update

Crafting Replicators will no longer offer a daily, weekly, and seasonal rotation of weapons, attachments and items. Instead, each player can interact with each Replicator once per match at no cost, as crafting materials have been completely removed as a resource.

At the start of each match, 12 replicators will spawn on the map, with additional spawning at the start of round four, allowing players to quickly rotate after picking up their item of choice, and seek out fights with their improved inventory.

Craftable items include a Medkit, Shield Battery, ammo for both of a player’s weapons, or fallen squadmate banners, and is now instantaneous in season 20, instead of taking the standard 10 seconds.

Additional quality-of-life changes to Crafting 2.0 include:

• Inventory can now be accessed from the crafting menu
• Printed items left alone will auto-eject from the Replicator after some time

Big Maude Weapons Update

With Crafting 2.0 removing crafting materials, Rampart’s town takeover now functions differently. Instead of buying a fully-kitted weapon for materials, all players can take one weapon for free, which will dispense after a short wait time. To make up for the sale, gold weapons are no longer offered, but the weapon variety has been increased from previous seasons, which usually offered duplicate weapon choices.

World Systems

• Extended Supply Bins (Support Blue Bins)
  • Players can find smart gear upgrades for Knockdown Shields, Helmets, and Backpacks in the hidden shelf
    • Small chance of granting purple gear if a player on the squad has white gear or none at all
    • Small chance of granting gold gear if the entire squad has purple gear
  • More reliably gives Heat Shields & MRBs when needed
  • Increased likelihood of getting Med Kit over Syringes

Ring Exploit Prevention

• Players spending too much time outside the Ring will be warned, then eliminated

One problem that has constantly plagued ranked in past seasons is squads taking advantage of healing characters like Lifeline to stay outside the ring, allowing them to avoid combat altogether and “rat” their way to a top lobby placement.

Season 20 aims to finally put a hard cap on how long a player can spend outside the ring, directly eliminating them if they stay outside the ring too long. Currently, it is unclear how long a player will be able to stay in the ring before the new prevention system kicks in, but with Respawn’s public anti-ratting stance, the community may finally be able to have a full lobby that intends to fight, instead of playing hide and seek.

Ranked Reloaded

The biggest changes come to the matchmaking and scoring systems, which will not be using tier-based lobbies. Instead, Apex games will be found based on RP values, with premade parties matching by the highest-ranked player, and hidden skill rating will no longer have any influence on any final scores. 

Any kills after a player reaches six eliminations will only be worth half of their original value. Additionally, players can earn two new bonuses that contribute to each kill and final placement. Killing or assisting in eliminating higher-ranked enemies will reward players the challenger bonus, which gives a 50 percent points bonus that is unaffected by the elimination kill cap.

Players who place in the top five of a ranked match will start a streak bonus, which gives an additional RP bonus at the end of match, and lasts until a player is eliminated at sixth place or lower, capping out at maximum 40 RP bonus.

• Two match streak: +10 RP
• Three match streak: +20 RP
• Four match streak: +30 RP
• Five match streak: +40 RP

Additional changes to ranked are as follows:

• Ranked Splits return for season 20, with initial ranking drop by six divisions
• Ranked Tier RP requirements will be increased, starting at 20 RP for Silver
• Level requirement for playing ranked lowered from 50 to 20
• Provisional Matches have been removed
• Promotional Trials have been removed
• Player Rankings now visible

Map Rotation

• The following maps will be available in Trios and Duos for the season:
  • Olympus
  • Storm Point
  • World’s Edge

New map: Thunderdome

First appearing at King’s Canyon in the inaugural Apex season, the Thunderdome returns with a completely new landscape as part of the Mixtape playlist, where it will be playable in all three game modes of TDM, Control, and Gun Run. 

Bug Fixes

• Double-clicking in the Melee Tab now equips items
• Firing Range dummies no longer clip through damaged doors
• Heat Shields and Legend Ult items can no longer be placed on Tridents
• In-match Challenge display now lists all five challenges
• Player created pings can once again be removed
• Players will no longer teleport into the building overlooking the fight night ring via Trident
• Valkyrie can no longer get under the turbine on Olympus
• Voiceline while picking up enemy Banner Cards no longer indicates it is a squadmate
• Audio
  • Most in-game dialogue is now synchornized between clients
  • Squad members can now be muted while spectating
• Graphics
  • DX12 (PC) fixed several causes of crashes
• Legends
  • Ash Ult, Rampart Tac/Ult, Wattson Tac/Ult, and Loba Ult can no longer be placed out of bounds
  • Conduit’s Tac now appears for observers
  • Mad Maggie’s Ult now destroys Gibby’s Tac
  • Mirage decoys that are destroyed by Catalyst’s Piercing Spikes no longer keep the trap active nor make hit sounds briefly after dying

Quality-of-life changes

• Destructible Legend abilities have consistent damage feedback
  • Objects which previously showed red (flesh) damage numbers will now show as gray and the damage numbers will indicate if the object is destroyed
  • Increased visibility for gray damage numbers
• Firing Range: Nessie was inspired after watching some centuries old videos and wanted to change things up a bit. The yellow and purple polka-dots look quite dashing.
• Gun Run: changed the Victory notification for the winning team to say “You Are the Champion” instead of “<Team> is the Champion”
• Per Optic ADS Sensitivity: added an option for Seer Passive which controls how quickly you can turn while unarmed and using Heart Seeker
  • Performance Mode aim assist has been tuned to feel similar to 60Hz mode
  • Added advanced haptics and adaptive triggers support for PlayStation and PC consoles
• If you encounter an issue, please ensure to connect the controller via USB and complete any updates

• Navigation
  • Event Tab: dedicated tab appears when there is an active Event (previously under the Seasonal Tab)
  • Death Menu: added a Squad Tab where you can access your groups information, report, and mute VoIP/pings while you’re dead
  • Legends Tab: selected Legend will not reset to featured one when your cursor is not over a Legend
  • Melee Tab: Death Box icon is now clickable
  • Store Tab: new subtab containing offers that were previously in Featured, Specials, Seasonal, and more with improved navigational flow and presentation
• Graphics
  • General GPU rendering optimizations for FX
  • Improved Low Res FX rendering quality
  • Improved Volumetric Lighting
  • Optimized FX after stepping through a Catalyst wall for better GPU performance
  • Optimized FX when taking damage from Fuse’s ultimate for better GPU performance
  • PS5 and Xbox SX/S improved CPU graphics performance with parallelization of rendering workloads

Tags

Clubs were first introduced in season seven, but are now being retired in favor of tags, which are four-character-long indicators in front of player names that can be changed at any time by the social tab on the main menu.

120Hz Performance Mode

All current-gen consoles with supported displays can now enable performance mode for enhanced graphical settings and 120 FPS gameplay for the first time on consoles.