Apex Legends is almost constantly being data mined, providing players with loads of leaks to speculate about. In one of the latest leaks on reddit, sradgirl555 posted a bunch of images of unreleased items, weapons and possibly even enemies coming to the game.
Some of these Apex Legends leaks have been mentioned or shown in some form before, the latest leak simply provides us with new images to look at. And a whole lot to speculate about.
Battle royale games always need to be innovating to ensure they keep their players entertained and coming back for more pain. With the start of Season 3, Apex Legends introduced a new map, a new gun, a new legend, and some new mechanics like the vault, the train, and cargo bots. They’re innovating for sure. With those innovations are going to come changes in gameplay. The question is, will the changes be for better or worse?
Up close and personal
There are a lot of images of melee weapons in sradgirl555’s leaked image bank. There’s a bolo sword, a screwdriver which has been assigned to Octane, a combat knife, and a data knife. The data knife, however, might not be a melee weapon, but rather an item used to hack terminals or drones. That1MiningGuy, a very successful data miner, previously shared an animation of the data knife being used to hack, rather than slash.
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- Bbolo sword.
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- Combat knife.
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- Data knife.
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- Octane’s screwdriver.
But there’s a host of other melee weapons that could be coming to Apex Legends. It’s possible these could all be unreleased heirloom items. A screwdriver as an heirloom though doesn’t seem like a good idea considering how much they usually cost.
Another possibility is that melee weapons will be added to the maps at some point. Players would be able to pick them up around the map and use them to beef up their melee attacks. While I’m partial to that idea, it does leave you with a question about what to do with the heirloom items. Would heirlooms become unique skins for the melee weapons? That would be a good solution. You certainly can’t have heirloom carrying players start every game with a melee weapon. The day you can purchase an advantage in a battle royale, it’s dead.
Bombs away
Two of the other images that caught my eye were the proximity detonator and the rocket launcher projectile. If both of those were to make it into Apex Legends, they would considerably change gameplay.
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- Proximity mine. You can see C4 written on it.
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- Rocket launcher projectile.
The proximity detonator appears to be a C4 explosive that, presumably, would explode when someone stepped close to it. Mines or traps can cause difficulties when it comes to balancing and encouraging a specific style of gameplay. They often result in more defensive (some would say negative) gameplay, which isn’t the way most players in Apex Legends like to play. The Legends used the least in the game are always the defensive ones. Modern Warfare was the most recent game to struggle with their mine, the claymore, and they quickly had to nerf it in the face of player outrage.
The other big bomb dropped in the leaked images is the projectile for a rocket launcher. While blowing things up with rocket launchers is fun, it isn’t very skillful. These projectile weapons that cause big explosions and one-shot players are never fun to be the victim of. You feel cheated of your chance at a fair fight. Inevitably, skilled players end up resenting their addition to games.
If the rocket launcher came with just one rocket, that would be a different story. You would have to sacrifice an entire weapon slot to carry it, which might result in you not having the tools you need to take a fight. That feels like a decent trade-off for carrying such power.
Testing, testing
Different style weapons like the C4 and rocket launcher do cause a shift in power in games. Which could be a good thing for Apex Legends. Suddenly abilities and characters that weren’t that good become incredibly useful. Mirage could set off C4 with his illusions. Gibraltar’s shield and Wattson’s pylon would neutralize the rocket launcher. Change is good. It prevents battle royales from stagnating. Respawn Entertainment’s willingness to make changes is refreshing and gives me hope that Apex Legends will be going strong for a while.
Whether these items eventually make it into the game and how they will change it, only time will tell. You can see all the leaked images on the Imgur album from sradgirl555 below.
