Apex Legends is just hours away from launching its latest season, Amped, which will take players soaring once again over a reworked Olympus map. Alongside the map update, Respawn is introducing tweaked mechanics and balanced Legends to shake up the gameplay. Valkyrie, Rampart, and Horizon are set to receive some of the most significant changes, giving these characters a fresh lease on life for the new season.
Legend Designer Ian Holstead, Lead Legend Designer Casey O’Brien, Lead BR Designer Eric Canavese, and Lead Ranked Designer Clement Bachellerie recently took time to discuss some of the bigger changes coming to Apex Legends this week.
### Valkyrie, Rampart, and Horizon Get Major Updates
**Shacknews:** Can you go over some of the bigger changes to Valkyrie, Rampart, and Horizon? I know they’re getting big updates. How did you decide to approach them for the changing meta, and what can players expect?
**Ian Holstead, Legend Designer:** Valkyrie is definitely the primary focus this season. Her jetpack has been revamped — cooldowns have changed and her speed is significantly higher. This makes her movement feel different but much more powerful. We’ve also improved her Tactical ability with some quality of life buffs, and her Ultimate has cool new upgrades. Overall, she should feel fresh to play.
For Rampart, we focused on upgrading her walls to make them more usable in a variety of situations. They’re designed to make you feel safer and now feature a new mechanic that gives you a big speed boost when you’re dealing damage around your walls. She also has some exciting new upgrades.
Horizon received some movement-oriented upgrades as well, giving her back some of the power she lost through nerfs over time.
We picked these Legends because they’d been somewhat neglected and had low pick rates. We saw a lot of opportunity to breathe new life into them, especially with the velocity and speed focus we’re bringing this season. They’re exciting candidates for these improvements.
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### Double Tap Hop-Up: Twice the Bullets, Twice the Damage
**Shacknews:** What can you tell me about the new Double Tap hop-up? It sounds like you guys are really excited about it.
**Casey O’Brien, Lead Legend Designer:** The Double Tap hop-up is being added to the Alternator this season. Since our changes are centered around speed and velocity, this just felt like a cool addition. It lets the Alternator shoot from both barrels simultaneously, making it very powerful at close range.
The Alternator is our versatile mid-tier SMG, and this hop-up boosts its close-range potential drastically. We’re aiming for more close-range combat scenarios this season—moving away from the current long-range meta. With Double Tap, players will get twice the bullets, twice the damage, and a lot more fun shredding opponents in close quarters.
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### The Shift Toward a Close-Range Meta
**Shacknews:** You mentioned moving towards a close-range meta. Which Legends will benefit most from that?
**Ian Holstead:** Many Legends excel in various scenarios, so it’s a bit challenging to say one is best in close-range fights. Gibraltar, for example, always thrives in shotgun metas. But overall, most Legends will see benefits with this shift, especially from the added emphasis on speed and aggressive playstyles.
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### Introducing Mantle Boost: Expanding Advanced Movement
**Shacknews:** Tell me about the new Mantle Boost update and how you’re improving movement for all players.
**Clement Bachellerie, Lead Ranked Designer:** Movement is at the heart of Apex Legends. We’re always looking for ways to build on that core aspect. We’ve noticed players executing advanced techniques like supergliding and tap-strafing, which often require complex keybinds and precise timing—sometimes even hardware-dependent.
Mantle Boost is our way of making some of those advanced movement techniques more official and accessible to a wider pool of players. It’s effectively formalizing superglide-style movement so more players can enjoy the fast, skillful gameplay that makes Apex unique.
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### Player Feedback Driving Balance Decisions
**Shacknews:** How does player feedback influence which weapons and Legends you aim to balance?
**Clement Bachellerie:** We’re starting to be more transparent about our balance decisions. Our patch notes often explain that changes come from analyzing player feedback and pick rates. We’ll continue this practice and even dive deeper into our decision-making in the future.
We constantly monitor live data and player reactions, and we’re ready to implement balance changes between patches if we identify any runaway issues that could harm gameplay.
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### Impact on the Apex Legends Global Series
**Shacknews:** How do you expect the pro scene to receive these changes?
**Casey O’Brien:** From the weapons side, we’re taking some hits to marksman rifles and snipers, which have dominated ALGS recently. I expect the meta at the highest level to shift more toward close-range combat. Some players will be excited for the new meta, others might be a bit disappointed—it depends on personal playstyle, but a shift is definitely coming.
**Ian Holstead:** On the Legend side, it should be interesting. Legend bans have already changed how ALGS players pick and play characters, and the Legends we’re buffing got plenty of competitive play at one point or another. Rampart still sees some play, but the others have fallen off. It’ll be fascinating to watch how they make a comeback.
Because of Legend bans, the pro scene tends to maintain high diversity in picks, so the changes won’t be as black-and-white as weapon shifts can be.
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With these updates, Apex Legends’ Amped season promises to bring fast-paced, thrilling gameplay that revitalizes old favorites and shakes up the meta across all levels of play. Players can look forward to soaring through Olympus with Valkyrie’s new jetpack, fortifying fights with Rampart’s upgraded walls, and feeling the rush of enhanced movement mechanics like Mantle Boost. Keep an eye out as the season drops and the meta begins to evolve!
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146645/apex-legends-amped-interview