Apex Legends Data Miners Find New Characters, Weapons
Apex Legends is only two weeks old, but that hasn't kept players from speculating about what the game's future has in store. Now it appears some especially curious fans have gone past guessing and landed themselves some real concrete information (via Game Rant), uncovering new characters and weapons that Apex Legends might have planned for a later date.
It all comes thanks to data miners, who've been poring over the game's many files searching for clues. And in the first round of data mining, it seems that these digital detectives have discovered two new characters, or Legends, that could potentially join the Apex Legends roster.
The first is Octane, whose name tends to be associated with racing or speed. It's possible this character could primarily focus on high movement speed, whether for the character itself or for the whole team, but Octane's abilities haven't been entirely nailed down just yet. What we do have when it comes to Octane is a potential window for when the character could be revealed. Data miners have reportedly discovered what are called "Post Launch Playlists" in Apex Legends' data files, and in a playlist scheduled for Week 8, an "Octane Preview" playlist is set to go live. Should that correspond to a date eight weeks after Apex Legends came out, it would mean that Octane could show up toward the very end of March or the early beginning of April.
Along with Octane came the discovery of another character: Wattson, whose name appears to be a pun of sorts. Wattson will more likely than not boast abilities that use electricity, and we're a little more confident about that thanks to a Wattson-related sound file that was discovered for something called a Tesla Trap. We don't know what a Tesla Trap is just yet, but should Wattson become a full-fledged member of the Apex Legends roster, there's a pretty good chance we'll find out then.
New characters weren't all that data miners were able to dig up, however. Respawn Entertainment, the developers behind Apex Legends, have already stated that new guns would come to the game in the months ahead. And now it seems we know the names of at least two of them.
One of the weapons, the L-STAR EMG, is a light machine gun that might not be all that new for anyone who's played Titanfall or Titanfall 2. It appears to be a carryover from that franchise, but perhaps slightly modified. And it certainly wouldn't be the first time a Titanfall weapon showed up inside Apex Legends. The game has a bunch already, leading us to believe that Respawn will continue to bring weapons over from that series and, in the future, draw on it for inspiration when it's time to invent something new.
Which leads us to the final weapon uncovered by data miners, and that is the HAVOC. This is not a gun that showed up in either of the two Titanfall titles, so at this stage, we have to assume that this is an entirely new creation for Apex Legends. All we can say for sure is that the HAVOC is an assault rifle, and that the data mined version of the gun looks to have two different firing modes: semi-automatic and full-automatic. And while we assume all of the content mentioned here — characters and weapons — will one day become part of Apex Legends, this content could just as easily be work that didn't make the cut in the final game. Just a word of warning.
That doesn't mean there isn't more in store for Apex Legends. Respawn Entertainment has already published a Battle Pass roadmap that lays out all of the new content players can expect in the coming months, including new Legends, new weapons, and new cosmetic loot items. The Battle Pass is scheduled to release sometime in March, with new content drops coming every time a three-month season wraps up. And in that regard, Apex Legends is borrowing very heavily from the Fortnite model. There's no word yet on how much the Battle Pass will cost, but that information is certain to come sometime before the Pass begins next month.
Apex Legends has gotten off to a hot start since it launched back on Feb. 4. In many ways, it's hard to believe that only two weeks have passed, and that we're still in the very early days of this game's life. In terms of Twitch viewership, Apex Legends still sits atop the list, with some of the site's biggest streamers drawing in huge, captive audiences. And players are discovering new secrets hidden within the game on a fairly regular basis. No game can keep the number one spot forever, and we're sure that — at some point — the fervor around Apex Legends will die down a bit. But hopefully when it does, Respawn will be ready with a bundle of new Battle Pass content to bring players back on board.