Apex Legends – Season 2 “Battle Charge” impressions

Season 2 for EA and Respawn Entertainment?s free-to-play battle royale title Apex Legends launched last week, bringing with it a new character, map changes, a reworked Battle Pass system, daily and weekly challenges, and ranked leagues. This season is dubbed Battle Charge, which seems appropriate, as Respawn is clearly looking to recharge players excitement with the reworks and new content being introduced here. Overall, it?s certainly a step up from the first season, and indicates that Apex Legends has a promising future ahead of it.

One of the bigger additions here is new character Natalie ?Wattson? Paquette, who brings unique electrical abilities to the fray that can help wall off opponents and defend set points on the map. Her ultimate ability deploys an Interception Pylon that emits an area of effect field capable of slowly recharging shields, while also taking down enemy ordinance, like grenades and bombardments. Her passive allows her to completely refill her ultimate meter when using the consumable Ultimate Accelerant, useful since she can deploy multiple Interception Pylons. Finally, her cooldown ability consists of tossing down electrical fence posts that connect to one another, allowing you to create a perimeter that will damage and slow enemies, and ping when an enemy passes through the fencing. Wattson certainly feels unique compared to most, and has a mix of abilities that seem useful throughout a match.

The changes to the Kings Canyon map for this season are varied, but there are a few standouts to be sure. One thing you?ll immediately notice is the addition of different creatures roaming around. There?s colossal Leviathans that roam around like oversized dinosaurs. They?re slow and overall don?t do much, but there is the possibility of getting smashed if you happen to end up under their feet. There?s also flying creatures around the map that can drop loot chests, color coded like enemy death drops, providing another option to find higher quality weapons, attachments, and armor.

Another map change comes from two new zones replacing two other zones on the map. The biggest change is the new ?The Cage? area, which consists of a large, multi-leveled building with different access points, an open ceiling, different grapple lines and so on. It?s one of the biggest structures in the game for sure, and I?ve seen a number of firefights culminate there already.

The reworked reward system for Season 2?s Battle Pass feels like a large improvement over the first, giving out more substantial rewards as you progress through the levels. The new Daily and Weekly challenges help a ton, offering either experience points towards your overall Battle Pass level, or full level jumps for the harder to complete challenges. My only gripe is that daily/weekly challenges for Legends you haven?t unlocked really shouldn?t pop up, but they do. Also, it would be nice to see a re-roll ability for the daily challenges, maybe once a day, to help you cycle out of needing to use characters you don?t typically play as.

Again, Season 2?s content so far feels like a pretty big improvement over the first, and provides a perfect excuse to dive back in to Apex Legends. The new character, reworked Battle Pass, and map changes have certainly been enough to get me hooked again. So if you haven?t played around Kings Canyon in a while, you should certainly consider revisiting Apex Legends in the near future.