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Respawn Entertainment has an exciting surprise in store for the popular battle royale gamers, perfectly timed for festive season. Enthusiasts of this game's highly fluid movement will be pleased to discover that an innovative traversal feature is being implemented when Season 27: Amped goes live on Nov. 4.

Unveiling The Mantle Boost

Named "Mantle Boosting" by the developers, this ability gives players a burst of forward momentum when scaling ledges and walls. As explained key developer Eric Canavese, Mantle Boosting has unofficially been a feature of Apex Legends for quite a while, usually referred to as "mantle jumping." However it's challenging for casual gamers, and typically employed by pro gamers in competitive play or tournaments. This season, the team simplifies the process for everyone to execute these tricky movement boosts.

"This technique existed in Apex for a while, but the movement requires skill to pull off and gamers might not realize it [is in the game] without external guides," Canavese states. "Now including a visual cue so players can clearly identify when and how to activate the high-octane traversal skill, opening up the feature and introducing fresh strategies to play for a much wider base."

The Reasoning Behind Make It Accessible

Why make a once niche movement quirk available to everyone? Principal designer Josh Mohan explains the team aims for gamers to experience empowerment — including ones who are inexperienced.

"Our community is doing advanced techniques like super-glides and tap-strafing, and we examined at our competition, observed what our players execute, and we said, 'How can we extend these capabilities to more players?'" the designer clarifies. "Since right now, some of these techniques are kind of janky to use — you need to change controls and execute within one-frame windows. So we said, 'How about we create a more official implementation?'"

The Amped Update Emphasis on Mobility

Mobility is primarily the central theme in this season, with characters the gravity mage, Rampart, and the aerial combatant all getting enhancements to maintain them in motion. Recovery time on her tactical ability is shorter, and this skill will boost users upward much quicker than it used to. Rampart's Amped Cover feature overhead protection and the ability to provide speed boosts to those nearby. But the spotlight is on the high-flying this Legend receiving significant improvements this season, with multiple tweaks applied to make her more potent, faster, and more lethal.

"In my opinion many agree that her moment has arrived," says Legend designer Ian Holstead. "There's no doubt she was dominant in the past, but due to the addition of new Legends, movement[-based] passives, and redeployment tools, it seemed like she fell behind in current Apex. This presented an ideal chance for the team to reexamine multiple elements [of her kit] and essentially bring her back to former prominence."

Valkyrie's Upgrades

To reclaim Valkyrie's relevance in current strategies, Holstead notes the team evaluated each of her abilities and implemented some powerful changes. Her jetpack have been upgraded, increasing velocity while airborne, and the jets themselves regenerates much quicker, allowing her to remain longer aloft. Now she won't take damage from her ultimate ability, which was enhanced to mark opponents who are hit from the missiles. Her Skyward Dive ability — which lifts her entire squad skyward for redeployment or retreat — requires reduced delay to fire up. She's also getting some new perk choices that players can choose to conserve resources, widen the area of her rockets, or accelerate her ultimate takeoff time.

"Valkyrie's equipment now delivers on that jet-fighter fantasy," he says.

Map Changes

Additionally, the lone airborne map, Olympus, is getting a mobility-focused facelift, with an extensive redesign that expands choke points and renders securing elevated positions more manageable. Respawn says Apex Legends this update is all about providing gamers the tools required to compete in the competition.

"Essentially, we examined Apex's core identity as a fast-paced FPS," explains principal designer Josh Mohan.

The battle royale the Amped season launches November 4th at the specified times.