Apex Legends Saviors: Newcastle Abilities, Map & Weapon Changes Explained

Apex Legends Season 13 Saviors launched May 10th and there’s a lot to go over from Stormpoint map changes, new Legend Newcastle, and new balance updates. There are actually quite a few major weapon changes and smaller Legend adjustments that has the community talking about how this might be the most interesting update to Apex yet. Here’s everything you need to know about the latest Apex Legends Season update.

Map Changes

The map rotations this season will be Olympus, World’s Edge, and Storm Point. Stormpoint has some minor and major changes to its map this time around. There’s a new POI called Downed Beast where the giant sea creature rose up and died while fighting the Legends. Downed Beast is a high tier loot location that connects to three other POIs: North Pad, Checkpoint, and The Mill. You can enter the sea creature’s corpse (ew) to loot around or get cover from enemies and the body provides several points of elevation since you can climb on top of the body but also stay below if you like. 

There are also old buried IMC Armories that have been activated and raised above water that players can get to and activate challenges. These armories were originally planted throughout the planet to aid IMC pilots during the war but were inactive until now due to the threat of the sea creature. In order to activate an armory, you walk up to it and cross its ramp to enter the structure. Once you activate the armory, it will draw the ramp inside so no one else can cross while you’re inside, and the armory will drop Spectres for you to fight inside. You have to fight waves of Spectres and once you survive for 60 seconds you’ll receive high tier loot that’s specific to your loadout. The more Spectres you kill the better loot you get. Once you’re done with the armory challenge you can choose to redeploy into the air or leave through the ramp you came in on.

With this latest update, when you rotate and land out of bounds you won’t be able to use your Legend abilities. You also cannot use your weapons, throwables, heals, or mobile respawn beacons or heat shields. Additionally, any Legend passives (for example: Valkyrie’s jet packs) count as Legend abilities so you aren’t able to use those either. So choose wisely when you decide to rotate out of bounds to get over a giant mountain or building since you won’t be able to linger as comfortably anymore.

New Legend: Newcastle

Newcastle is the latest Legend to drop into Apex this season and it was revealed that he’s actually none other than Bangalore’s long lost brother, Jackson. The dynamic between them will be interesting to see as the season plays out. But in terms of playstyle, his kit makes him a mix of a defensive and support Legend. 

• Passive – Retrieve The Wounded: Drags teammates with his Revive Shield deployed as he revives them. The Revive Shield is powered by half the level of Knockdown Shield Newcastle has in his inventory.
• Tactical – Mobile Shield: Throws a controllable drone that generates a moving energy shield. This shield can be destroyed but has an upper half and lower half that have to be destroyed separately.
• Ultimate – Castle Wall: Leaps to an ally or targeted area and slams down a deployable shield wall. There is no damage on the ultimate being dropped, but this wall is electrified and will stun and slow enemies who push into it directly. 

While Newcastle seems pretty strong, his walls are directional and can be destroyed. Maggie’s tactical ability, her drill, can also attach and go through his walls. 

Balance Changes

There are some major changes this season with weapons. In the Crafting Rotation, the Flatline and Longbow are now floor loot and the Rampage and R-301 are now Crafter weapons only. This is going to increase the dropship landing locations in POIs where Crafters are since the R-301 is a staple weapon most players use and they will want to craft it right away. The Spitfire is also back on ground loot and the Mastiff is back in care package rotations with a slight buff in fire rate, tightened blast pattern, and 3 more points of damage per pellet. The Havoc’s recoil has been slightly improved at the start of its wind up and the Dual Shell hop up for the Mastiff has been removed from the loot pool. 

The Spitfire’s damage was decreased from 19 to 18, the purple and gold mag capacity was dropped from 55 to 50, crouched hip fire spread was increased, headshot damage was reduced, and the reload time was increased. Hopefully this keeps the Spitfire from being the dominating weapon again this season. One of the biggest gun changes is the Kraber getting a small nerf. The Kraber’s headshot multiplier is now down from 3 to 2 and the damage has been reduced from 145 to 140. The Kraber has never been changed since Apex dropped so this will be an interesting change to keep an eye on, especially competitively.

A few Legend changes have been implemented as well, with Fortified Legends no longer having reduced headshot damage. But helmets have been slightly buffed as the blue helmet headshot damage reduction has been increased from 40% to 50% and the purple helmet headshot damage reduction was raised from 50% to 65%. Rampart mains can rejoice as her Amped Cover deploy time is a bit faster now and the Cover health on deployment was increased from 45 to 120. When Rampart uses Sheila, the spin-up time was decreased from 1.75 seconds to 1.25 seconds. In a less fun tweak, Valkyrie can no longer spin around while in the upward launch of her ultimate which is going to make teams play her ultimate a bit more reserved.

Apex Legends Saviors brought so many changes to the game. The Ranked system has also been completely reworked which you can read about on EA’s site to see the full in-depth changes. With Apex hitting their 13th season, these big changes honestly aren’t too surprising and hopefully keep players from feeling burnt out on game content. So, how do you feel about the changes so far? Are you happy or unhappy about the weapon swaps? Let us know! For more Apex news, be sure to stay tuned to IGN for any future updates.

Stella is a Video Producer, Host, and Editor at IGN. Her gameplay focus is on competitive FPS games and she’s previously reviewed Apex Legends, Hyper Scape, Halo Infinite Multiplayer, and Battlefield 2042. She regularly hosts and shoutcasts competitive Apex Legends and Halo Infinite tournaments when she isn’t streaming on her Twitch channel after work. You can follow her on Twitter @ParallaxStella.