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Respawn Entertainment has a special treat prepared for Apex Legends gamers, perfectly timed for festive season. Enthusiasts of the battle royale's super-slick traversal will be pleased to learn that an innovative traversal feature will be introduced when Season 27: Amped goes live on Nov. 4.

Introducing Mantle Boosting

Named "Momentum Boosting" by the developers, this feature gives players a burst of propulsion when scaling obstacles. According to lead battle royale designer the design lead, this technique has unofficially existed of Apex Legends for some time, often called as "ledge boosting." But it's no easy feat for casual gamers, and typically employed by competitive players in competitive play or esports competitions. This season, Respawn is making it easier for players of all skill levels to execute these tricky speed-boosts.

"Mantle Boosts have been in the game for some time, but the movement isn't easy to pull off and gamers might not realize it's possible without outside knowledge," Canavese explains. "Now including a visual cue so players can easily see when and how to activate the fast-paced traversal skill, opening up the mechanic and introducing fresh strategies to play for a much wider base."

Why Make It Accessible

Why make a once niche technique accessible to all players? Principal designer the development lead says the team aims for players to experience empowerment — including ones who are inexperienced.

"Our community performs other crazy stuff like super-glides and tap-strafing, and we looked around at other games, observed what the community are doing, and we wondered, 'What if we provide some of this power to a broader audience?'" Mohan clarifies. "Because currently, some of these advanced [movement] mechanics are somewhat awkward to access — you need to remap your keybinds and hit precise timings. So we said, 'What if we create a more official implementation?'"

Season 27 Emphasis on Mobility

Mobility is largely the name of the game in Season 27, with Legends the gravity mage, the defensive specialist, and Valkyrie all getting buffs to maintain them mobile. The cooldown period on her tactical ability has been decreased, and the Gravity Lift will propel players upward much quicker than before. Her defensive walls feature overhead protection and capability to grant movement bonuses to those nearby. But it's aerial this Legend who's getting significant improvements now, with multiple tweaks applied to make her more potent, faster, and deadlier.

"I think many agree that her moment is here," says Legend designer Ian Holstead. "Certainly she was top-tier in the past, but due to the addition of new Legends, mobility perks, and redeployment tools, it seemed like she fell behind in current the game. This presented an ideal chance for the team to revisit a bunch of aspects in her abilities and sort of bring her back to former prominence."

Valkyrie's Upgrades

To reclaim her competitive status in current strategies, the developer notes the team evaluated each of her abilities and implemented some powerful changes. Her VTOL Jets received improvements, increasing velocity while airborne, and the jets themselves now recharge three times faster, allowing the player to remain longer in the air. She can no longer be harmed from her own Missile Swarm, which has also been upgraded to mark enemies who are hit from the missiles. Her squad redeploy ability — which launches her entire squad into the air for redeployment or escape — now takes much less time to activate. Additionally, she gains recently added perk choices that users can choose to conserve resources, expand the spread of her rockets, or further speed up her ultimate activation.

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

Map Changes

Even the game's only floating arena, this location, receives a mobility-focused facelift, with major changes that opens up bottlenecks and makes securing elevated positions more manageable. Respawn state the game this update is all about providing gamers the tools required to compete in matches.

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

The battle royale Season 27: Amped releases November 4th at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST.