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Respawn Entertainment has an exciting surprise prepared for the popular battle royale gamers, arriving just in time for the holidays. Enthusiasts of the battle royale's highly fluid movement can rejoice to discover that an innovative traversal feature will be introduced when the Amped season goes live on Nov. 4.

Introducing Mantle Boosting

Dubbed "Mantle Boosting" by Respawn, this ability provides gamers a burst of propulsion when climbing over obstacles. As explained key developer the design lead, Mantle Boosting has unofficially been a feature of Apex Legends for quite a while, usually referred to as "ledge boosting." However it's no easy feat for the average player, and is mainly used by competitive players in competitive play or esports competitions. This season, the team simplifies the process for everyone to execute these tricky speed-boosts.

"This technique have been in the game for a while, but executing it requires skill to pull off and a player would never know it [is in the game] without outside knowledge," the designer states. "Now including a visual cue so users can easily see when and how to trigger the fast-paced movement ability, making accessible the feature and adding fresh strategies to play for a much wider base."

The Reasoning Behind Make It Accessible

What's the reason for making a once niche movement quirk available to all players? Principal designer the development lead says the team aims for players to experience empowerment — including ones who are new.

"Our community is doing advanced techniques like super-glides and tap-strafing, and we looked around at our competition, observed what our players are doing, and we wondered, 'How can we provide some of this power to more players?'" the designer clarifies. "Since currently, some of these techniques are somewhat awkward to access — it requires to change controls and execute within one-frame windows. We proposed, 'What if we create a polished implementation?'"

Season 27 Emphasis on Mobility

Mobility is largely the name of the game in this season, with characters the gravity mage, Rampart, and the aerial combatant receiving enhancements to help keep them in motion. Recovery time on Horizon's Gravity Lift has been decreased, and the Gravity Lift will propel players into the air faster than before. Rampart's Amped Cover now include overhead protection and the ability to grant speed boosts to allies in range. But the spotlight is on aerial this Legend who's getting significant improvements this season, with multiple tweaks implemented to make her stronger, quicker, and deadlier.

"I think there's quite a consensus that Valkyrie's time has arrived," says character developer Ian Holstead. "There's no doubt that she's been dominant in the past, but due to the addition of new Legends, mobility perks, and redeployment tools, it seemed like she fell behind in current Apex. This presented a really great opportunity for the team to reexamine a bunch of aspects in her abilities and essentially restore her to her glory days."

Valkyrie's Upgrades

To reclaim her competitive status in current strategies, the developer says the team evaluated each of her abilities and implemented some powerful modifications. Her VTOL Jets have been upgraded, increasing her speed during flight, and the jets themselves now recharge much quicker, allowing her to remain longer in the air. Now she won't be harmed from her ultimate ability, which was enhanced to mark opponents who are hit from the missiles. Her squad redeploy skill — which launches teammates skyward for redeployment or escape — requires much less time to fire up. She's also getting some new Legend Upgrades that players can choose to conserve resources, widen the area of her rockets, or further speed up her ultimate activation.

"Valkyrie's equipment now delivers on the pilot experience," he says.

Map Changes

Additionally, the only floating arena, Olympus, is getting a movement-friendly overhaul, with an extensive redesign that opens up bottlenecks and renders securing elevated positions more manageable. Respawn says Apex Legends Season 27 focuses on giving players the tools required to keep up with the competition.

"Really, we were looking at Apex's fundamental nature as a fast-paced FPS," says principal designer the lead.

Apex Legends Season 27: Amped releases Nov. 4 at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST.