Apex Legends Season 23 takes you back to the beginning with Launch Royale

Apex Legends From the Rift is the upcoming season of the battle-royale and it launches on Tuesday 5th November - yes, you read that right, it's out today! So, you really don't have long to wait to get your hands on the new and revamped Lifeline, Launch Royale, plus all the other goodies being added to round off 2024.

As recently announced on Apex Legends official X account, this season will be home to Launch Royale - a brand new mode that lets you turn back time and set foot in the very beginning of Apex Legends, with the original Legends and weapons on offer to give you the original Apex experience.

That's just the first of many things to look forward to this season - up next is the remixed and revived Lifeline. The combat medic not only has a very literal new look with a robotic arm (with currently unknown origins), but all of her abilities are now different, too - redesigned to give better reset opportunities for any squad that contains her.

Lifeline's Passive still contains combat revive but it's been expanded, so now she can also grab onto D.O.C and glide mid-air for a short period of time until fuel runs out. You can let go of and grab D.O.C as much as you want during gliding, as long as there's fuel - which replenishes the moment you touch the ground. Weapons cannot be drawn while gliding, however.

D.O.C is still Lifeline's Tactical but the little drone now has more mobility. Instead of hovering in place, he'll now follow an ally he's assigned to while healing them and any allies in the surrounding area. Lifeline can call him back to her or reassign D.O.C to another teammate at any time.

Now, onto the biggest change, Lifeline's Ultimate says goodbye to the Care Package! In its place will now be D.O.C's Halo, a ring-shaped shield that's impervious to damage. Lifeline's squad can enter and exit the shield as they like, but there's no strafing if the ring is deployed inside a building or outside - it's the same wherever it's deployed. However, the halo is stationary and without a roof there's a vulnerability to attacks from above so watch your back.

Lifeline isn't the only Legend getting some love in Season 23. Gibraltar is getting a massive cooldown reduction on his dome from 30 seconds to just 17 seconds alongside two other upgrades. Newcastle's mobile shield will no longer take damage and it can now be controlled while downed, as well as Wattson being able to tap into the revive expert perk as a chooseable upgrade. At a recent press event, it was also teased that Loba and Mirage will see big changes this season but, at the time of writing, these are still to be revealed.

All Support class legends are seeing some boosts this season too, with class perks to help them excel in revival and recovery. Supports won't be slowed down while healing and small meds will heal double the normal amount. Also, this class will be able to revive allies 25 percent faster than before, with health regen granted to revived players and mobile spawn beacons in teammate's death boxes as well as at crafting beacons. To counter all that, Supports no longer have the unique ability to craft squad banners.

On the subject of Legends, the Apex Legends team has made clear it's aware of the issues with Crypto and his Off The Grid ability, but has assured there are changes coming to fix these issues at the start of the season and Off The Grid will be staying for the foreseeable future.

Now, let's move on to the new loot type being added in From the Rift - Rift Relics. These are new and exceptional pieces of loot - and something to look out for. When lightning strikes the ground from cosmic rifts in the skies above, you should follow the beam of light to find new high-level loot. These loot items are different from anything else found on the ground across the maps in terms of sheer power and functionality, and there's even some items that will be familiar to Titanfall fans. One such item is the EPG-1, marked as possibly the biggest and most powerful Rift Relic Weapon.

There's a new category of item being added as part of this, called Boost Kits. These add passive or active abilities to your Legend when you find them. For example, The Hover Boost Kit will let you hover in the air while aiming.

We've learned there are more than 25 Rift Reflics available in the loot pool, which will be added gradually across the season. Getting your hands on any of these relics can dramatically turn the tables of who is winning in a match - so it's worth battling it out to find them before someone else does. These new and intriguing loot items will be available across PUBS, as well as the limited-time Trios Revival and Straightshot Revival modes this season.

Weapon update time, and first of all the HAVOC is going into the care package with the Select Fire Beamshot attached. As one goes in, another comes out so the Devotion is returning to the floor without the Turbo Charge but it has received multiple baseline buffs to compensate. The Sentinel and Rampage have had their charge capacity increased, the Longbow and Spitfire have had damage buffs, as well as the L-Star now dealing extra damage with the P2020 Akimbos getting a hip fire accuracy increase.

A new universal melee weapon has been added, the Karambit. Also called Raptor's Claw, its design and animations won't be the same for each Legend. Every character will have their personalities reflected by this weapon if they use it and it will be available at the launch of From the Rift.

Ranked has had some tweaks that are said to be laying the foundations for bigger updates coming in the future. A new visualisation tool will be introduced in ranked lobbies so you can see the distribution of ranks in the one you're in. It's a bar at the bottom of the screen that shows you what rank players are in the lobby and how many of that rank are. There is a plan to add this mechanic to other modes in future seasons.

The entry cost for platinum, diamond and master ranks will be reduced and new ranked rewards are actively being worked on to replace the removed dive trail rewards, but it's worth knowing they're likely coming in the near future instead of this season.

Apex Legends' team told us that working on anti-cheat is its top priority. The developer is working hard behind the scenes to continuously improve anti-cheat and working with more anti-cheat tools to ensure that the matches remain fair in such a competitive game.

Apex Legends From the Rift will launch on Tuesday 5th November 2024 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch.