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Respawn Entertainment has a special treat prepared for the popular battle royale gamers, arriving just in time for festive season. Fans of this game's highly fluid traversal will be pleased to learn that a new movement mechanic is being implemented when the Amped season goes live on November 4th.

Unveiling The Mantle Boost

Dubbed "Mantle Boosting" by Respawn, this feature provides gamers a surge of forward momentum when scaling obstacles. According to lead battle royale designer Eric Canavese, Mantle Boosting was previously been a feature of Apex Legends for quite a while, often called as "ledge boosting." However 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 speed-boosts.

"This technique existed in Apex for some time, but the movement requires skill to pull off and a player would never know it's possible without external guides," Canavese explains. "Now including a Mantle Boost indicator so users can easily see the timing to activate the high-octane traversal skill, opening up the feature and adding new ways to play for more players."

Why Make It Accessible

Why make a once niche movement quirk accessible to all players? Principal designer the development lead explains developers aims for gamers to feel powerful — including ones who are new.

"Our community is doing advanced techniques like super-gliding and tap-strafes, and we looked around at our competition, observed what our players are doing, and we said, 'How can we provide some of this power to a broader audience?'" Mohan explains. "Since right now, certain techniques are kind of janky to access — you need to remap your keybinds and hit precise timings. We proposed, 'How about we create a more official implementation?'"

The Amped Update Movement Focus

Movement is primarily the name of the game in Season 27, with characters Horizon, the defensive specialist, and Valkyrie receiving enhancements to help keep them mobile. The cooldown period on Horizon's Gravity Lift has been decreased, and this skill will boost players into the air much quicker than it used to. Rampart's Amped Cover now include a roof and capability to provide movement bonuses to allies in range. But it's the high-flying this Legend receiving significant improvements this season, with various adjustments implemented to enhance her as more potent, quicker, and deadlier.

"In my opinion there's quite a consensus that Valkyrie's time is here," says Legend designer the designer. "Certainly she was dominant in the past, but with the introduction of new Legends, movement[-based] passives, and redeployment tools, it seemed like she's not very relevant in today's Apex. It was a really great opportunity for us to reexamine a bunch of aspects [of her kit] and sort of restore her to former prominence."

Enhancements to the Aerial Legend

To reclaim her competitive status in current strategies, the developer notes the team assessed each of her abilities and implemented some powerful changes. Her jetpack have been upgraded, increasing velocity during flight, and this equipment regenerates much quicker, allowing her to remain longer aloft. Now she won't be harmed from her ultimate ability, which has also been upgraded to tag enemies who are hit from the missiles. Her squad redeploy skill — which lifts teammates skyward for repositioning or retreat — now takes reduced delay to fire up. Additionally, she gains recently added perk choices that users can choose to conserve resources, expand the spread of her rockets, or accelerate her ultimate takeoff time.

"Valkyrie's equipment now delivers on the pilot experience," he comments.

Map Changes

Even the game's only floating arena, Olympus, is getting a movement-friendly overhaul, with major changes that opens up bottlenecks and renders securing elevated positions a bit less daunting. Respawn says the game this update is all about giving players the tools required to compete in matches.

"Really, we were looking at the game's core identity as a movement shooter," explains lead Legend designer the lead.

Apex Legends the Amped season launches November 4th at the specified times.