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Respawn Entertainment have an exciting surprise prepared for Apex Legends players, perfectly timed for festive season. Fans of the battle royale's super-slick movement can rejoice to discover that an innovative traversal feature will be introduced when Season 27: Amped launches on November 4th.

Introducing The Mantle Boost

Dubbed "Momentum Boosting" by Respawn, this ability gives players a burst of forward momentum when climbing over obstacles. As explained key developer Eric Canavese, this technique has unofficially existed of Apex Legends for some time, usually referred to as "mantle jumping." But it's no easy feat for the average player, and is mainly used by competitive players in competitive play or tournaments. This season, the team is making it easier for players of all skill levels to successfully perform these tricky movement boosts.

"This technique have been in the game for some time, but the movement isn't easy to pull off and gamers would never know it's possible without outside knowledge," Canavese explains. "Now including a Mantle Boost indicator so players can clearly identify the timing to trigger the fast-paced movement ability, making accessible the feature and adding fresh strategies to compete for a much wider base."

Why Make It Accessible

What's the reason for making a once niche movement quirk accessible to everyone? Principal designer the development lead explains the team aims for gamers to experience empowerment — including ones who are new.

"[The playerbase] performs advanced techniques like super-gliding and tap-strafes, and we looked around at our competition, observed what the community execute, and we wondered, 'How can we provide some of this power to a broader audience?'" Mohan clarifies. "Because right now, some of these techniques are somewhat awkward to use — you need to remap your keybinds and execute within one-frame windows. So we said, 'How about we make a more official implementation?'"

The Amped Update Emphasis on Mobility

Movement is largely the name of the game in Season 27, with Legends the gravity mage, Rampart, and the aerial combatant all getting buffs to help keep them in motion. Recovery time on her tactical ability is shorter, and the Gravity Lift will propel players into the air much quicker than before. Rampart's Amped Cover now include a roof and capability to provide movement bonuses to those nearby. However the spotlight is on aerial Valkyrie receiving significant improvements this season, with various adjustments applied to make her more potent, faster, and deadlier.

"I think there's quite a consensus that Valkyrie's time is here," says Legend designer Ian Holstead. "There's no doubt that she's been top-tier previously, but with the introduction of new Legends, mobility perks, and redeployment tools, it seemed like she's not very relevant in current Apex. This presented a really great opportunity for us to revisit a bunch of aspects in her abilities and essentially restore her to former prominence."

Enhancements to the Aerial Legend

To restore her competitive status in current strategies, the developer notes the team assessed each of her abilities and introduced significant changes. Her VTOL Jets have been upgraded, boosting velocity while airborne, and this equipment now recharge three times faster, allowing the player to remain longer aloft. Now she won't take damage from her own Missile Swarm, which was enhanced to mark enemies who take damage from it. Her squad redeploy skill — which lifts her entire squad skyward for repositioning or escape — now takes much less time to fire up. Additionally, she gains recently added perk choices that players can select to conserve resources, widen the area of her rockets, or accelerate her Skyward Dive activation.

"Valkyrie's equipment fulfills that jet-fighter fantasy," he comments.

Olympus Improvements

Additionally, the lone airborne map, this location, is getting a movement-friendly facelift, with an extensive redesign that expands bottlenecks and renders securing elevated positions a bit less daunting. The developers state the game Season 27 is all about giving players the resources required to compete in the competition.

"Really, we were looking at the game's core identity as a fast-paced FPS," explains principal designer Josh Mohan.

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