Apex Legends: Everything to Expect From Season 5

Apex Legends is still in its fourth season, the same one that introduced Revenant and a new battle pass for players to work through, but that season is now starting to wind down. Players only have a while longer to progress through the battle pass before it ends which signals the incoming Season 5 and everything that typically comes with those seasons. That means new characters, new maps, new guns, and more features added at the start of the season that players only have teases and glimpses of at this time. We don’t know the full details of Season 5 yet, but from the launch trailer and what we already know based on past seasons, we can try to piece together parts of it.

Season 4 is called “Assimilation” in Apex Legends and brought players a couple of notable features to recall before moving onto the next season. Revenant has been in the game for a while now as the new Legend for this season and just recently got some buffs, so if you’ve been putting off playing as him, now’s the time to try. It also added a permanent map rotation between Worlds Edge and Kings Canyon to give players multiple map options to play on.

Respawn Entertainment has now officially announced the start date of Season 5 with that season scheduled to begin on May 12th, though it hasn’t begun talking about it too much in greater detail. That should change as the current season’s end draws nearer, but until then, read on to see what we and players know about Season 5 as well as what we can expect from it.

When Does Season 4’s Battle Pass End?

Now that Season 5 of Apex Legends officially has a start date set for May 12th, we can say for sure when the Season 4 battle pass will end. The countdown in the battle pass menu of the game combined with the Season 5 start date shows the battle pass will end on May 12th as well as Respawn and players transition into the next season. Season 5 will specifically start at 10 a.m. PT on that day, so expect the battle pass to go away an hour or so before that to make way for the transition.

Next season will of course introduce another battle pass for players to progress through whether they pay for it or just get the free version. There’s historically been little downtime between seasons’ battle passes ending and the next one starting, so expect to be working through the new battle pass shortly after the current one ends.

New Legend

After much speculation, datamining efforts, and rumors, it’s now been confirmed that the Season 5 Legend will be Loba, a talented thief who’s got it out for Revenant. The Stories from the Outlands cinematic which was released at the end of April confirmed the new character’s appearance in Season 5 as well as her backstory.

Loba was the daughter of the family killed by Revenant in the Season 4 cinematic where the murder robot went crazy and killed both of Loba’s parents. The new Legend was able to make it out alive and turned to a life of crime afterwards, and now that she knows where Revenant is, she’s out for revenge.

Her abilities haven’t been fully detailed yet, but we’ve seen her moves in-game. One of them that’s likely her Tactical allows her to teleport short distances while the presumed Ultimate appears to pull in loot around her to give to her team.

New Map/Map Changes

Map changes happen more frequently than new characters are added, but only a bit more often. World’s Edge was introduced in Season 3 as the game’s second map, not including variants of the existing King’s Canyon, but changes to maps’ various points of interests are much more common since they don’t require creating an entirely new map.

Map releases happen even less frequently than map changes, but map changes are expected. As revealed in the Season 5 gameplay trailer, both Skull Town and the Thunderdome are being removed from Kings Canyon and are being replaced by a new area called Salvage. It remains to be seen what other parts of the map have changed.

Town Takeovers

Going along with the occasional map changes that happen at the start of each season are the occasional Town Takeovers which happen throughout the seasons. These takeover events are typically centered around one character and build up their backstory while giving players new cosmetics, challenges, and in-game points of interest to check out.

Wraith, Octane, and Bloodhound are just a few of the characters who’ve been showcased in past Town Takeover events. The Old Ways event that’s ending soon featured Bloodhound with unique skins for the Legend and others along with a certain area of the World’s Edge map with limited-time trials for players to compete in. There’s no telling which character will take over parts of the game next, but expect it to be different from the ones listed above.

New Weapons

Along with map changes and new Legends, seeing at least one new weapon added to the game also seems like a certainty. Weapons have been introduced gradually to the game since its launch with weaker ones buffed, stronger ones nerfed, and others adjusted to better fit into the meta. Season 4 introduced the Sentinel to the game, for example, a sniper rifle which can be charged up with a Shield Battery to shatter shields.

So what type of weapon will be added? Again, datamines and leaks can only take players so far, so it’s better to look at what’s been added in the past and what the game lacks to guess what might happen. We’ve gotten a new energy assault rifle, an energy machine gun, and two sniper rifles since the game’s launch, so perhaps the next weapon will be one that doesn’t fit into a category not listed there. Pistols, light machine guns, and sub-machine guns are currently tied for the fewest number of weapons in the game with three in each category.

New Game Modes

Limited-time game modes have become a staple in battle royale games to keep things fresh and lively amid the standard modes of various sizes, so there will definitely be more game modes of that kind in Season 5. Whether we see permanent game modes added is another question entirely though, but it seems unlikely.

The Grand Soirée event that happened earlier in the year, for example, introduced numerous limited-time modes for players to try out. Those all went away eventually, but players did get the permanent addition of Duos to the game to allow them to put together two-person teams instead of the standard three-person groups. Solos aren’t happening which means the only way to go from here would be Quads, though seeing that happen is far less likely than getting new limited-time modes.

Mirage Buffs

A much more specific change we can probably expect to see in Season 5 is an update for Mirage. The character’s a good time to play as with his witty banter and outplay potential, but his abilities leave something to be desired compared to others and have been the subject of discussions within the community since his release.

Respawn has already confirmed that buffs are on the way for Mirage, but what those will be and when they’ll happen isn’t known. Players have an idea that the “Emergency Dance Party” ability from one of Apex Legends’ limited-time modes will be Mirage’s new ultimate, and while it’s a pretty good guess, we can’t say for sure.

No characters have ever been reworked in Apex Legends, though if it were to happen to someone, it’d probably be Mirage. “It’s coming” doesn’t provide much of a timeframe for when buffs will arrive, but with Season 5 drawing nearer, it’d make sense to hold them until that season’s arrival.

Something for Titanfall Fans

One of the final big things to keep an eye on during Season 5 is the addition of something related to the Titanfall franchise. There’s a lot of ground to cover in that expectation since you can pretty much draw connections from most things in Apex Legends to the Titanfall games. References to Hammond Robotics in the Season 4 video above are one example, but seeing how it’s something that Respawn has spoken directly about instead of being something fueled by datamines and “leaks,” it’s worth paying attention to.

“We’re always bringing in stuff from the Titanfall universe,” a Respawn developer said in a recent interview about Apex Legends and Season 5. “We built an awesome world in Titanfall 1 and 2 and want to make sure we’re bringing that forward. I will say this: There could potentially be a pleasant surprise for Titanfall fans in season five.”

Respawn has said in the past that Titans aren’t coming to the game, so don’t get your hopes up for that. Whatever the “pleasant surprise” is, Titanfall players will probably know it when they see it.