Apex Legends Shadow Society Event Patch notes: Balance updates, Legend changes, new game modes, and more

The Apex Legends Shadow Society Event Patch notes have brought forth a wave of new changes to the game. With Season 20, Apex Legends saw a massive makeover in its core features, introducing new factors such as Legend Upgrades, Evo Harvesters, and other RPG-style features. This has improved the game's general quality of life for players across both casual and competitive playlists.

However, with such a massive update, naturally, there were certain shortcomings concerning numerous Legend Upgrades. The Apex Legends Shadow Society Event Patch notes have addressed these shortcomings and improved the general quality of life experience for all Legends.

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Apex Legends Shadow Society Event Patch notes (March 22, 2024)

Balance Updates with Shadow Society Event Patch notes

Care Package

• First set of Care Packages
• Care Package weapons removed
• Seasonal Gold weapons now spawn in their place (R-301, RE-45, Mastiff, Devotion, 30-30)
• Second and third set of Care Packages are unchanged

Dev Notes: Over the seasons, we've been improving the lethality of crate weapons to increase excitement and usefulness. This has led to early Care Package weapons feeling disproportionately strong, so we've decided to push them to later in the game rather than pulling back on their strength. Offering gold weapons in their stead keeps the early drops relevant but not as dominant.

Weapon Spawn Rates with Shadow Society Event Patch notes

• Assault Rifle and Marksman Rifle spawn rates normalized per zone

Dev Notes: Normalizing these spawn rates should smooth out the looting experience and ammo economy across maps when it comes to weapon variety. Ex. the 30-30 had a higher spawn chance than a Triple Take in high tier zones—they now have the same spawn chance in high tier zones.

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Weapon changes with Shadow Society Event Patch notes

CAR

• ADS vertical recoil slightly increased

EVA-8 [Care Package]

• Blast pattern tightened
• Initial projectile size increased
• Improved handling
• Reduce ammo reserves to 64 (was 96)

Dev Notes: We're satisfied with how the EVA-8 is performing in very close quarters combat, but it falls a bit short just outside of barrel-stuff range. We hope an improvement to its blast pattern, projectile size, and handling speed will round out its place as a CQC monster.

Rampage

• Energize time slightly reduced to better match the animation

Dev Notes: The Rampage LMG energize time was slightly misaligned with the buff kicking in, resulting in unintentional interruptions right as it was about to finish. This adjustment tightens all that up in Apex Legends.

Wingman [Care Package]

• Ammo Reserves decreased to 72 (was 90)
• Can no longer equip the 1x Digital Threat
• Optic is no longer locked and can be replaced

Dev Notes: At the start of the season, we locked the optic to the 1x HCOG as a stop-gap fix to remove the Digital Threat from the Wingman. Digi on Wingman represents an immense power spike, and our preference is to keep the power of the Wingman in the weapon and not the optic.

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Legend changes with Shadow Society Event Patch notes

Ballistic

• Upgrades
• Ammuvision: removed
• Lasting Bullet: moved to Level 2
• NEW Speedy Whistler: successful hits with Tactical give a 2s burst of speed (Level 3)

Dev Note: Ballistic didn’t receive the full suite of upgrades we wanted to give him on launch, and these upgrades won’t be his last in Apex Legends. Decoupling Extra Bullet and Lasting Bullet (alongside the addition of Speedy Whistler) creates more versatility with the Tactical on a Legend that’s more one-dimensional than some.

Bangalore

• Rolling Thunder: Cooldown increased to 4.5 min (was 4)
• Smoke Launcher
• Cooldown increased to 35s (was 33)
• No longer deals damage
• Smoke duration decreased to 11s (was 18)
• Smoke particles now dissipate faster
• Upgrades: Level 2
• Ultimate Cooldown+: removed
• NEW Tactical Cooldown: reduces Tactical cooldown by 5s
• Upgrades: Level 3
• Cover Me: Auto-Ping no longer tracks the player who triggered double time
• Refuge : Heal Rate increased to 3.5 HP/s (was 3HP/s)

Dev Note: Bangalore’s smoke has been dominant for a while now in Apex Legends. We thought about reducing smoke charges, but keeping two with a shorter lifetime encourages more plays with the smoke than longer plays IN the smoke (limiting its omnipresence in fights). Adding the Tactical Cooldown in place of the Ultimate Cooldown promotes a more meaningful choice between two core components of her kit. The Cover Me tracking potential was doing more work than intended, especially through smoke, so we’ve dialed this back to point you in the right direction rather than provide perfect positional info in Apex Legends.

Bloodhound

• Upgrades
• Odin’s Glare: moved to Level 2
• Tactical Cooldown: moved to Level 3

Caustic

• Gas Damage now increases by 1 each tick (was 5/5/6/6 etc.)
• Downed players still only receive 5/tick
• Gas Slow effect now only applies on first damage tick for 2s
• Upgrades
• Particle Diffuser: moved to Level 3
• Residual Toxins: moved to Level 2

Dev Note: Caustic’s Particle Diffuser upgrade makes it much harder for players to escape his larger gas cloud and getting that early in game could be quite oppressive. We’ve moved this upgrade to spike his power in the late game specifically in Apex Legends. The goal of the gas changes is to create more counterplay options when playing around gas; dipping in and out of it should still be punished with the Gas Slow, but moving within it is now a possibility for willing test subjects as long as they don’t experiment for too long.

Conduit

• Radiant Transfer
• Cooldown Increased to 31s (was 26) with Shadow Society Event Patch
• Regen Interruption delay time increased to 2s (was 1)

Dev Note: Ahh yes, Revenant’s best friend Octane Conduit. She continues to be a strong pick, given her ability to maintain pressure by supporting aggressive allies in flights. Part of the counterplay is to interrupt her shield regen with damage, but we are seeing that it’s all too easy to evade briefly and have the regen kick back in almost immediately Apex Legends. Increasing this delay not only stops the regen for longer, it also cuts into the overall duration of the regen and its potential healing—making it more possible to combat her total healing output.

Fuse

• Upgrade - Wreckless: explosive damage is now reduced by 50% (was 25%)

Lifeline

• Upgrades: Level 2
• Tactical Cooldown+: removed
• NEW Tactical Cooldown++: Tactical Cooldown reduced by 25s (making the cooldown time equal to its deployment duration, so you always have DOC)
• Upgrades: Level 3
• Gift Wrapped: removed
• NEW Gold-Plated: next Package spawns with Golden Gear
• EVO Cache, Gold Knockdown Shield, Gold Backpack
• Also contains 1 Shield Battery, 1 Medkit, and either a Phoenix Kit or a Mobile Respawn Beacon

Dev Note: Gift Wrapped was a pretty strong choice that revived a lacking Support pick in higher levels of play. However, it didn’t feel entirely on brand for our combat medic and it led to some issues controlling the power spike and frequency of Care Package weapons Apex Legends. We’ve replaced this with a more deterministic draw for gold items that Lifeline can use to support her squad. Rapid Response was also a popular choice; let’s see if a cooldown-free DOC makes this decision more interesting.

Octane

• Upgrade - Wreckless: explosive damage is now reduced by 50% (was 25%)

Pathfinder

• Upgrade - Zipline Zen: damage reduction increased to 50% (was 25%) with Shadow Society Event Patch

Revenant

• Forged in Shadows
• Knocks no longer refresh the Tactical during Ultimate
• Tactical Cooldown is no longer shorter during Ultimate
• Ultimate Cooldown Increased by 60s
• Upgrades
• Agile Assassin: removed
• Tactical Cooldown: moved to Level 3
• NEW Ultimate Cooldown: reduces Ult Cooldown by 30s (Level 2) with Shadow Society Event Patch

Dev Note: Revenant has been a powerful contender in Ranked for a few seasons Apex Legends. This change aims to reduce the frequency of his Ultimate and pushes using late game upgrades to improve his Tactical (instead of giving him more frequent movement in his most powerful state). Agile Assassin was a cautious addition at launch, knowing the power of Revenant. However, it required too small of a window to take advantage of the minor charge-time improvement it gave to be viable, so it has been removed.

Seer

• Focus of Attention: decreased activation delay to 1.2s (was 1.4)
• Upgrades
• Artist’s Reach: moved to Level 2
• Long View: moved to Level 3
• Racing Hearts: removed (now integrated into base Tactical)
• NEW Ultimate Cooldown: reduces Ult Cooldown by 30s (Level 2)

Dev Note: Seer’s upgrades were seeing one-sided pushes to regain his lost range and scan duration, and Tactical upgrades didn’t change how hard the ability is to land consistently. These changes push Seer to make a choice on his Ultimate early on, and then tap into one direction of his Tactical in the late game—which has been adjusted to hit more frequently.

Wraith

• Upgrades
• Tactical Cooldown: moved to Level 3 with Shadow Society Event Patch
• Ultimate Cooldown: moved to Level 2

Dev Note: Wraith was one of a couple legends with a Level 3 Ultimate related cooldown option, but this didn't give her enough time to maximize the Ult’s effectiveness as a rotational tool in earlier stages of the game. Swapping this with her Tactical Cooldown now makes our interdimensional skirmisher’s choices less one-dimensional as you now have to choose between Tactical improvements.

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Map changes with Apex Legends Shadow Society Event Patch

Map Rotation

• Pubs
• Storm Point
• Olympus
• Broken Moon
• Ranked
• Storm Point
• Olympus
• World's Edge
• Mixtape
• Control: Barometer, Production Yard, Thunderdome
• Gun Run: Monument, Skulltown, Thunderdome
• TDM: Monument, Thunderdome, Zeus Station

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Game mode changes with Shadow Society Event Patch

• NEW LTM: Lockdown
• Capture and hold zones to score points
• Lockdown map rotation: Thunderdome, Skulltown, Zeus Station, and Monument
• Three Strikes Updates
• Revive time reduced to 2.0s
• Players revived with 100% health and 0% shields
• New minimum guaranteed loot system - ensures you respawn with a competitive version of your loadout and inventory.

Mixtape changes with Shadow Society Event Patch

• Control: Players respawning on the Mobile Respawn Beacon enter a skydive when they exit the dropship ( instead of free falling down as they previously did )
• Kill Replay with Shadow Society Event Patch
• Now show hitmarkers and damage numbers
• Round-winning replays now show the killer’s banner
• NEW Map: Monument
• Supports TDM, Gun Run, and Lockdown

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World Systems implementation with Shadow Society Event Patch notes

• EVO Harvester
• Changed sound fx that play for both the player and their teammates collecting EVO with Shadow Society Event Patch
• Removed problematic spawn locations on Storm Point near map edges with Shadow Society Event Patch
• EVO Rewards
• Changed for respawning and reviving teammates to prevent exploitation
• Changed for scanning Ring Consoles to prevent excess EVO gain
• Wildlife & NPC: Spiders, Prowlers, and other NPC will now respect the rules of the ring, take appropriate ring damage, and be affected by heat shields

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