🔗 Share this article

Respawn Entertainment has an exciting surprise prepared for Apex Legends gamers, perfectly timed for festive season. Fans of the battle royale's super-slick traversal can rejoice to learn that an innovative traversal feature is being implemented when the Amped season goes live on Nov. 4.

Unveiling Mantle Boosting

Dubbed "Momentum Boosting" by Respawn, this ability gives players a surge of forward momentum when scaling ledges and walls. According to key developer the design lead, this technique has unofficially existed of Apex Legends for quite a while, often called as "ledge boosting." However it's challenging for the average player, and typically employed by competitive players in Ranked Mode or esports competitions. In this update, Respawn is making it easier for everyone to successfully perform these advanced speed-boosts.

"Mantle Boosts existed in Apex for some time, but executing it requires skill to perform and a player might not realize it's possible without external guides," the designer explains. "Now including a Mantle Boost indicator so players can easily see when and how to trigger the fast-paced traversal skill, opening up the feature and introducing fresh strategies to compete for more players."

The Reasoning Behind Make It Accessible

Why make a once niche technique available to all players? Lead Legend designer the development lead says developers aims for gamers to feel powerful — even those who are inexperienced.

"Our community performs other crazy stuff like super-gliding and tap-strafing, and we looked around at our competition, looked at what our players are doing, and we wondered, 'What if we provide these capabilities to more players?'" the designer clarifies. "Because right now, certain advanced [movement] mechanics are somewhat awkward to access — it requires to remap your keybinds and hit one-frame windows. So we said, 'What if we create a more official version?'"

Season 27 Emphasis on Mobility

Mobility is primarily the central theme in this season, with Legends the gravity mage, Rampart, and the aerial combatant all getting enhancements to maintain them mobile. The cooldown period on Horizon's Gravity Lift is shorter, and the Gravity Lift will propel users into the air much quicker than it used to. Rampart's Amped Cover now include overhead protection and capability to grant speed boosts to those nearby. But it's aerial Valkyrie who's getting the most attention this season, with multiple tweaks applied to make her more potent, faster, and deadlier.

"I think many agree that her moment is here," says character developer Ian Holstead. "Certainly she was top-tier previously, but with the introduction of new Legends, movement[-based] passives, and redeployment tools, it felt like she's not very relevant in current the game. This presented a really great opportunity for the team to revisit a bunch of aspects in her abilities and sort of bring her back to her glory days."

Valkyrie's Upgrades

To reclaim her competitive status in the game's meta, Holstead says Respawn evaluated each of her abilities and introduced significant changes. Her jetpack have been upgraded, boosting her speed while airborne, and this equipment regenerates much quicker, allowing her to remain longer in the air. She can no longer be harmed from her own Missile Swarm, which was enhanced to mark opponents who are hit from the missiles. Her squad redeploy skill — which launches her entire squad skyward for redeployment or retreat — now takes much less time to fire up. She's also getting recently added Legend Upgrades that players can select to conserve resources, widen the area of her Missile Swarm, or accelerate her ultimate activation.

"Her jet pack now delivers on that jet-fighter fantasy," he says.

Olympus Improvements

Even the game's lone airborne map, this location, receives a movement-friendly facelift, with major changes that expands bottlenecks and renders securing elevated positions a bit less daunting. The developers state Apex Legends Season 27 is all about providing gamers the resources they need to compete in the competition.

"Essentially, we examined Apex's fundamental nature as a movement shooter," says principal designer Josh Mohan.

Apex Legends the Amped season releases Nov. 4 at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST.