Apex Legends Season 11 Preview and Interview – Can You Escape The Storm?

Apex Legends is going into Season 11 and the good folks at Respawn Entertainment were nice enough to present us a preview of all the new features being added to the game and answer some questions we had with the following spokespeople.

• Steven Ferreira – Team Director (High-level Storm Point)
• Rodney Reece – Level Designer (Storm Point Map Design)
• Ashley Reed, Senior Writer (Ash Narrative)
• Devin Weise – Designer (Ash Design)
• John Larson – Associate Live Balance Designer (CAR SMG/Balance)

The most important thing that the team mentioned is the improvements to Apex Legends’ Server. They are doubling down on their effort to resolve the game’s previous connection issues, and intermediate lag some players may experience at certain times in different regions around the world. 

Expanding forward, our dedicated server team at Respawn hopes to create new ways to see, predict and respond to potential bandwidth issues to implement new ways that we can make the backend of technically massive live games like Apex require less bandwidth. We hear you and the community and we are working to resolve these server issues. 

This new season will go live on Nov 2nd.

Apex Legends Season 11: Escape

The Season 11 update of Apex Legends welcomes players to the beautiful beaches of Storm Point. Legends have more than earned a holiday, but this won’t be it, not with prowlers and giant spiders roaming on the shores of this new island map.

Ash, the overseer of the Arenas, enters the Apex Games as the newest Legend after she decided to prove herself a true Apex Predator. A master of psychological and physical combat, there’s no underestimating the threat Ash poses to other Legends with abilities that could stop a Legends escape in their tracks.

The fan-favorite CAR SMG weapon from Titanfall has also been added to the Apex Legends arsenal providing a versatile weapon that makes Light or Heavy work of whoever’s down its sights. Players can also look forward to an array of new rewards to earn through a brand new Battle Pass.

Storm Point (New Map)

• Located on the planet Gaia, Apex Legends’ fourth map Storm Point was once an energy colony for the IMC, and the ruins remain. Many have tried to make a home here: all have failed. 
• The largest map, 15% bigger than World’s Edge. 
• Storm Point features a wide variety of diverse layouts, from tropical island hopping to giant mountain slides that allow Legends to play higher than the plane height in previous maps.
• With 17 primary points of interest on the map, Legends now have more areas to discover — all with unique and diverse styles designed for the competitive and casual player. 
• New Gravity Canons catapult players over locations limiting movement but allowing them access to their weapons and abilities to rain down terror from above. 
• All around, dangers swirl with the introduction of wildlife which includes prowlers and venomous spiders providing players with new targets to earn loot from as they explore the island. 

Ash (New Legend)

A new Legend with a familiar face is coming to Apex Legends Season 11. Ash has overseen the Arenas from the shadows and held a tight grip on Pathfinder’s heart. A simulacrum made from the woman who once was Dr. Ashleigh Reid, she is now determined to eliminate every trace of weakness that held her back as a human.  

It would be easy to think that there was nothing human left within that cold steel with abilities which include:

• Passive – Marked for Death: Deathbox icons show up on Ash’s minimap and full map screens whenever a player dies
• Tactical – Arc Tether: A projectile that shocks an enemy for a small amount of damage and will “tether” them to the ground
• Ultimate – Phase Breach: Produces a portal based on Ash’s line of sight

CAR SMG (New Weapon) 

When Legends are in a dangerous place, they need a dangerous weapon. Ideally, a flexible weapon: meet the C.A.R. SMG, capable of firing both Light and Heavy ammo. The Combat Advanced Round submachine gun is fully automatic, capable of laying down 846 RPM. With a fair amount of recoil, this isn’t a weapon to spray and pray with. This is a gun for when players are ready to make a stand and become the most dangerous thing on the island.

New Battle Pass

Improvise, adapt and overcome the dangers of Storm Point to earn all-new skins and items with the Escape Battle Pass. Enter the arena in style after collecting new skins which include Desert Mirage, Gibraltar’s Legendary Glorious Combatant, and Wraith’s Epic Vision Walker. At level 100, Legends can unlock the Pipe Dream and Fatal Attraction Reactive Prowlers, with plenty of other exciting rewards along the way: Music Packs, Loading Screens, Skydive Emotes, Quips, and more.

Ranked

It will feature two season splits with Storm Point running from November 2 to December 21 and World’s Edge running from December 21 to February 8, 2022. 

Apex Legends Season 11 Interview Q&A

What is the name of Ash’s rat? We love her little rat.

Ashley: We talked about it a lot internally and we came to a conclusion that Ash’s rat doesn’t have a name. Ash is pretty cold-blooded and likely uses the rat either for experiments or as something that she can train.

There is a lot of Titanfall in the latest update between Ash and the CAR SMG! How do you find the right balance between Titanfall and the current content of Apex?

Steven: Titanfall is part of the DNA of Apex Legends, it’s set in the same universe as Apex, it is part of the team’s DNA as well. So we always looked at Titanfall down the road, and build upon what we made in Titanfall. Because at the end of the day, when we try new things we also figure out what we want to put in the game is what makes people excited. The team is passionate about Titanfall, so they don’t think so much about balance, the more Titanfall we see the better. I think we will see more Titanfall in the future.

Does the new map have any exploration mode? Similar to the Olympus map.

Rodney: Unfortunately no, we are going to try to implement it but honestly, we need to put more resources in that area, so it won’t be there on day 1.

Of the points of interest (POIs) you highlighted in Storm Point, where do you expect some of the spiciest drops to occur?

Rodney: I will say that from the inception of the map there are a lot of things to look for specifically. One of the big ones is how we address certain types of bad experiences from third parties to how we avoid situations like with Skull Town, where the majority of the drops are there.

So we specifically created new POIs to essentially balance each other. So, there will be a combination of Barometer, Command Center, and LaunchPad. If everything goes right you will not have a situation where the entire survey drops in a single location.

What difference between Wraith and Ash? They seem similar.

Devin: They feel similar but there are a lot of differences. Ash’s portal only goes one way, which means she has to commit to a play. She can’t be like Wraith who can drop a portal, realize it’s in a bad position, and take back the portal. Ash just has to go through with it, even if it’s in a bad position. Ash also has an unreliable line of sight. You can’t easily get behind a piece of cover if you can’t see it. If you are on one side of the cover and want to get to move, you can’t do it with her portal, she’ll have to find another way to get around.

Do you have any plan to add actual Titans to Apex?

Steven: We have actually tried it before, we have put them in, played with them in different ways, we won’t say there won’t be titans in Apex but there is nothing coming right now and don’t expect it anytime soon.

If I switch to CAR’s mode, will I get the other light/heavy clip? Like if I switch from the light mode to heavy mode, will I get an extra light clip?

John: Essentially if you are in heavy mode and you have the magazine on that, you can swap to light ammo and still have increased capacity from heavy mag. Swapping armor also will trigger the reload.

Which map can we expect to be map rotation for this season?

Rodney: There will be a new map called World’s Edge. For ranked battles, the map will begin as Storm Point and change to World’s Edge.

Wraith feels less competitive within the current game meta, do you think there will be any balance changes anytime soon?

John: I think Wraith is still effective at what she does. I think she may have fallen subject to a bit of the mobility that we see like high-level play, but I think, at least my experience from the streams that I watch and my time play on the game, we still see plenty of Wraiths and I think we still see plenty of Wraiths excel with high rate success. So maybe with Ash now live, Ash pulls from the wraith mains and Wraith will need some love eventually but so far anytime soon, no, Wraith will not receive any buff.

How big is Ash’s hitbox compared to the other champions?

Devin: Her hitbox is pretty form-fitting, it is made to match her body type. She does have a thin midsection that can be a little bit weird just like Revenant, so it will shrink down like Revenant. So she will not be in a Pathfinder situation where the bullets are almost going through the model.

Any changes to rank that you would like to highlight?

John: for the BR, the tier difference between the killer and the victim(not sure with assistance) will be a count, so if you are a platinum player, you can queue up with your diamond friend for example. A kill from a diamond player will grant you 12 points instead of 10 and you also no longer need to actually win the RP cap as the RP cap has increased from 150 to 175. I believe 7 kills and a win will be the max, I think something like 12 kills in 7 places will also reach the cap. 

Outside the BR, will have some typical bugs fixed and a couple of minor changes that will come to Escape.

Is the Map inspired by Australia?

Rodney: A lot of artists worked on this map, so if you imagined that Australia came out from this, I wouldn’t be surprised. The original honest inspiration was taken from Fortune Island.

What are characters can we expect to have an interesting dialogue with Ash?

Ashley: She is connected to a lot of Apex characters and Titanfall characters. Obviously with Pathfinder and Horizon, but those who know the deep lore will know she has a connection to The Descendants, Pathfinder’s creator and if you can connect all of those dots, you’ll know who she might have a specific dialogue with. I don’t want to give too much of away, I want you to experiment yourself and have fun. 

Apex on PS5 and Xbox Series X, when was the timing, and you can share on this point?

Steven: I’m can’t get too specific or talk about it too early. If we are going to introduce something, we want to make sure we introduce it for a reason and we have a clear goal about what we want to accomplish. So we have a bunch of things that we are trying to get done and we can expect something in the next year but I am not getting into detail. We will talk more about this more soon.

Apex Legends is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Mobile. Season 11 will release on the 1st of November.

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