Apex Legends Season 17: Arsenal Launch Trailer Shows Off Ballistic’s Slick Battlefield Tactics

Respawn Entertainment has unveiled the launch trailer for Apex Legends’ Season 17: Arsenal. Picking up where the newest legend’s episode of Stories From The Outlands left off, the Arsenal launch trailer provides some explosive new details regarding the upcoming season’s content–and gives players a sneak peak at some of Ballistic’s abilities.

Framed as a pre-recorded video message left behind for Ballistic’s estranged son, Nathaniel, the new trailer provides a few insights into the way Ballistic operates both on and off the battlefield. After chiding his adult son for going through his belongings–where the video message was evidently hidden–Ballistic assures Nathaniel that his reasons for stealing his son’s spot in the Apex Games are entirely–well, almost entirely–altruistic.

As “Somewhere Beyond The Sea” plays in the background, Ballistic can be seen taking legends down one by one, even managing to beat professional trickster Mirage at his own bamboozling game. But despite his Apex Games moniker, Ballistic’s combat tactics aren’t entirely about firepower and brute force–he seems to devote significant effort to taking down enemies in style (and without breaking a sweat).

Though his abilities have yet to be confirmed, Ballistic’s official character bio lists him as an Assault-class legend, meaning his class-based abilities–accessing Weapon Supply Bins and carrying extra ammo–are no mystery. But the Arsenal launch trailer adds a bit more insight into the way his legend-specific abilities will perform in-game. At one point, he appears to use a special ability that seemingly causes Ash to short-circuit while firing at him. It’s unclear if this ability only affects non-organic characters, or if it’s related to what sort of weapon they’re firing, but it appears to cause Ash to lose control of either her ability to aim or her weapon itself.

Later, he’s seen using an ability that appears to take out an entire trio of enemies using a mechanism described via on-screen text as an “auto-loader.” It’s not entirely clear what’s going on here, though Ballistic appears to be blindly shooting at three different enemies while also doing a backflip several dozen feet above the ground, suggesting he may have an ability that improves his aim, or otherwise increases the odds of actually hitting something in spray-and-pray scenarios.

The trailer ends with an apology to Nathaniel–and a stern reminder to stop going through his father’s belongings. It’s hard to imagine Ballistic’s son will take the usurping of his place in the Apex Games gracefully, and the trailer seems to suggest this might not be the last we see of Ballistic’s adult son. After all, the only thing keeping Nathaniel out of the Games is a verbal promise from Torres “Duardo” Silva–Octane’s notoriously duplicitous father, and the current “Big Bad” of the Apex Legends universe.

One thing the trailer did confirm, however, is the release date for the Arsenal gameplay trailer, which is scheduled to go live on Monday, May 1 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET, with the new season slated to arrive a week later on Tuesday, May 9 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. But there’s still plenty of content left in Season 16–Apex’s new Veiled Collection Event went live yesterday and lasts until launch of Season 17, with a double XP bonus to help players finish up their Revelry battle pass.

Apex Legends is free to play on console and PC. A mobile version of the game, Apex Legends Mobile, is available to play on Android and iOS devices, but will be sunset on May 1.