The Battle Royale's Niche Movement Mechanics Become Widely Accessible This Season

The game developers have an exciting surprise in store for the popular battle royale players, arriving just in time for festive season. Enthusiasts of this game's highly fluid movement will be pleased to discover that an innovative traversal feature will be introduced when Season 27: Amped launches on Nov. 4.

Unveiling The Mantle Boost

Named "Mantle Boosting" by the developers, this ability provides gamers a surge of forward momentum when scaling ledges and walls. As explained lead battle royale designer the design lead, this technique has unofficially existed of Apex Legends for some time, often called as "ledge boosting." But it's no easy feat for casual gamers, and typically employed by competitive players in competitive play or esports competitions. This season, the team simplifies the process for everyone to successfully perform these advanced movement boosts.

"Mantle Boosts existed in Apex for a while, but executing it isn't easy to pull off and gamers would never know it [is in the game] without external guides," the designer explains. "We're adding a Mantle Boost indicator so users can clearly identify the timing to trigger the fast-paced movement ability, opening up the mechanic and introducing fresh strategies to compete for a much wider base."

The Reasoning Behind Make It Accessible

Why make a once niche technique accessible to all players? Lead Legend designer Josh Mohan explains the team aims for gamers to experience empowerment — even those who are new.

"Our community performs other crazy stuff like super-gliding and tap-strafing, and we looked around at our competition, looked at what our players execute, and we said, 'What if we extend some of this power to a broader audience?'" the designer explains. "Because right now, certain techniques are kind of janky to use — it requires to remap your keybinds and execute within one-frame windows. We proposed, 'How about we make a polished implementation?'"

The Amped Update Movement Focus

Mobility is primarily the name of the game in this season, with Legends the gravity mage, the defensive specialist, and the aerial combatant receiving enhancements to help keep them mobile. The cooldown period on her tactical ability is shorter, and this skill will boost players upward much quicker than it used to. Her defensive walls feature overhead protection and the ability to grant movement bonuses to those nearby. But it's aerial this Legend receiving significant improvements now, with various adjustments applied to enhance her as more potent, faster, and more lethal.

"In my opinion there's quite a consensus that Valkyrie's time has arrived," states character developer Ian Holstead. "There's no doubt that she's been dominant previously, but due to the addition of new Legends, movement[-based] passives, and redeployment tools, it seemed like she's not very relevant in current the game. It was a really great opportunity for the team to reexamine multiple elements [of her kit] and essentially restore her to former prominence."

Enhancements to the Aerial Legend

To reclaim her competitive status in the game's meta, Holstead notes Respawn evaluated each of her abilities and implemented significant changes. Her VTOL Jets received improvements, boosting velocity while airborne, and this equipment regenerates three times faster, allowing the player to spend more time in the air. Now she won't take damage from her ultimate ability, which has also been upgraded to mark enemies who take damage from it. Her Skyward Dive ability — which lifts her entire squad skyward for redeployment or retreat — requires much less time to fire up. Additionally, she gains recently added perk choices that players can choose to conserve resources, expand the spread of her rockets, or accelerate her ultimate takeoff time.

"Valkyrie's equipment fulfills the pilot experience," Holstead comments.

Map Changes

Additionally, the only floating arena, this location, receives a mobility-focused facelift, with an extensive redesign that opens up choke points and makes securing elevated positions more manageable. Respawn says Apex Legends this update is all about providing gamers the resources they need to keep up with the competition.

"Essentially, we were looking at the game's core identity as a movement shooter," says principal designer the lead.

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