True resurrection: Revenant is Apex Legends’ most popular new character in almost 2 years

Apex Legends always sees a pick-rate boom for its newest character at the beginning of a fresh season. But season 18 looks like the game’s most successful character release in almost two years—and the character isn’t even technically new.

Revenant’s resurrection is the talk of the town, and a week after season 18’s release on Aug. 8, it’s clear that Respawn’s first full character rework is a huge success. According to Apex Legends Status (ALS), Revenant’s pick rate has skyrocketed to 16.4 percent, going from one of the game’s least-chosen characters to the top of the charts, almost doubling the pick rate of Octane in second.

And while it’s normal to see a new character dominate pick rates, Revenant’s spike in popularity is the highest a new character has gotten since Ash was released in November 2021, according to ALS. That’s damn impressive, considering Ash was teased and anticipated in the game’s lore for over a year before her release, and she carried with her a reputation from Titanfall 2 as one of the game’s most intriguing and iconic bosses.

Revenant, by comparison, only held a reputation as a legend that wasn’t very useful. But that’s no longer the case.

Revenant’s pick rate is undoubtedly helped by Respawn introducing a challenge system that players can grind to unlock the character for free if they don’t have the Legend Tokens to do so. But it’s more than that, too. ALS reports Revenant holding phenomenal pick rate stats in Rookie through Silver, amongst players that might not already have him unlocked, and also in Master and Predator ranks.

The players ranked at the top of the leaderboard have almost assuredly had Revenant unlocked since his original debut in season four, which means that the pick rate isn’t just a gold rush for a free character. The new Revenant is legitimately fun to play, and can be a good ranked character in most teams.

Related: Revenant mains’ message to Apex fans trying out legend rework: Stop rushing into fights

That’s not to say that Revenant is suddenly the game’s best legend, and most pro players think he’s still weak in a competitive setting compared to several other characters. But it’s difficult to argue that the rework is anything but a success if he’s being played so much by both the casual Apex audience and some of the game’s best players.

Revenant’s pick rate will inevitably go down as the season progresses and players that just wanted to give the rework a shot gravitate back to their standard characters. But the early returns for the first full character rework in Apex are so good, it’s easy to see Respawn taking this angle again in the future for some suffering legends.