ImperialHal says Apex’s most-hated gun will become a staple in drops, but others cry troll

The P2020 is Apex Legends’ most underwhelming gun by some margin. Even at times when the Hammerpoint Rounds hop-up was in the loot pool, it felt like a chore to pick up a P2020 just because you had to waste a full weapon slot on a gun that wasn’t good unless you found an Epic-rarity hop-up to go along with it.

One of the worst feelings in Apex is landing near another couple of teams looking to fight quickly, opening up a loot bin, and finding only a P2020 (or multiple P2020s) inside. That’s why an off-hand comment from TSM’s ImperialHal has many fans hopeful that a solution for the P2020 is coming to the game next season. But was Hal actually giving his viewers a little leak for season 16 or was he just trolling them?

“Yeah, we’re spawning with a P2020 next season,” Hal told his chat. “You guys ready for that?”

If this is true, it wouldn’t be the first time Apex shook up the game by adding items that players automatically spawn with. Beginning in season nine, Apex started spawning players into games with a level one evo shield, two shield cells, and two syringes. It might seem far-fetched to those who only recently began playing the game, but for most of the game’s life, players actually had to run around and find their own level one shield when they dropped.

Spawning with a P2020 might take care of a couple of problems with weapons in Apex as well. Taking a gun out of the loot pool and making it a spawn weapon frees up some space for new weapons to enter Apex, as has been rumored for season 16 already. The developers have frequently cited concerns of the loot pool and weapon meta bloating with too many weapons and items, and taking out a gun in this manner opens the door for fewer concerns about too many weapons in the loot pool.

While dropping with a P2020 and not having to worry about running into three of them while an opponent immediately drops onto a Volt or an R-301 right beside you might sound great, there are other people in the community who think Hal’s comment to his chat is mostly a troll, and with good reason.

Some Reddit users correctly noted that it was a bit unusual for Hal to speak so candidly about a change coming for next season that hasn’t been publicly announced yet. The possibility exists that someone at Respawn could tell the player that certain things were fine to leak to his viewers, but it doesn’t seem like that’s a usual occurrence.

Others have pointed to a different, larger issue with giving everyone a P2020 when they first spawn: being a massive nuisance in hot drop situations.

It’s not uncommon for teams to gain an upper hand on their opponents by having all three players land on an enemy that has split away from their squad off of drop. Usually, those players don’t worry about getting a gun and start trying to melee their solo enemy to death, which is usually simple enough even if that player finds a weapon. Now imagine that strategy, but everyone has P2020s instead. It’s a pea shooter, sure, but if three pea shooters are all trained on one player, that one player is going to lose their fight.

In theory, this could disincentivize players from hot dropping further, encouraging teams to look for less crowded drop spots—or, knowing the Apex player base, it could just result in even more massive hot drops and poor game pacing as a result.

The commonplace practice of identifying Predator dive trails while in a game and teaming up with enemies to land on the Predator and try to punch them out also becomes quick and brutally efficient with P2020s in the hands of everyone.

It’s unclear if Hal is actually telling the truth here or just trying to rile his chat up a bit. And the potential costs and benefits of such a move feel relatively even, all things considered. Apex players probably won’t know the ultimate fate of the P2020 until season 16 actually launches in 2023.