At this point, Apex Legends reworking older characters’ kits and abilities (as developer Respawn has previously done with Lifeline and Revenant) is not new, so fans have a rough idea of what to expect from everyone’s favorite hunter Bloodhound when their rework drops with Season 30. Of course, Bloodhound mains should be preparing for their new kits, and every Apex Legends character should be prepared for their terrifying new Ultimate.
Alongside Bloodhound’s rework, the Apex Legends team is obviously introducing a ton of new content for the popular battle royale game as well. World’s Edge is getting a map adjustment for the first time in a long time, one that brings back popular POIs without pulling back from the competitive integrity of the map, and Season 30 is bringing in a ton of loot changes. Not only will players finally see the weapon stats of Apex Legends, but this change comes alongside new Corrupted Attachments for Apex Legends‘ guns. Plus, Loba and Rampart get buffs, some loot options are changing, and there’s the standard selection of Battle Pass options to boot.
Apex Legends Season 30 Begins on August 4
Bloodhound’s New Kit, Abilities, and Upgrades for Season 30
Bloodhound’s Passive and Tactical are largely being buffed with more tweaks to how they work than it seems they are necessarily being “reworked,” but their old Ultimate Ability, Beast of the Hunt, is replaced entirely with the Allfather’s Cloak Ultimate. Bloodhound’s Passive can now see a glowing trail left behind by enemies as they move, while White Ravens are more easily activated, taking away just a few seconds of friction in their kit. Bloodhound’s Tactical also now delivers longer body scans followed by timed snapshot scans so that Bloodhound’s team can keep the enemies visible for just a little longer. And finally, the Allfather’s Cloak is a deployable that cloaks Bloodhound’s team within a specific range, with added movement speed and threat vision within.
- Bloodhound’s Passive (REWORKED): Enemies leave a glowing trail as they move, while White Ravens fly further and are activated just by looking at them.
- Bloodhound’s Tactical (REWORKED): Track targets with the reworked Tactical, which delivers longer full-body scans followed by timed snapshot scans to keep prey visible for longer.
- Bloodhound’s Ultimate: Allfather’s Cloak (REWORKED): Throw it down to cloak any Legend within range, with bonus movement speed and threat vision while hidden. Leave the area to stay cloaked a little longer; the cloaking effect makes players harder to track, but firing a weapon or taking damage removes it entirely.
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Allfather’s Cloak works by common Apex Legends cloaking rules (similar to Mirage), so that taking damage or shooting breaks the cloak. When triggered, there’s an audio cue for nearby players to be aware of the cloaking tech, while there is a blue shimmer so that Bloodhound’s team is not completely invisible to enemies, senior Respawn technical designer Devin Weise explained to me in an interview. It still sounds like a playmaker, but it’ll be interesting to see how it lands, how it’s used, and what kind of plays come out of a strong Bloodhound team. Bloodhound players also get some new upgrades this season:
- Hidden Sight refreshes the Tactical when using the Ult and hides its use from enemy detection
- Bird’s Eye sends White Ravens to scout a second enemy squad independently
- True Predator lets Bloodhound recloak after firing a weapon
Which Came First: the Bloodhound Rework or the World’s Edge Adjustments
The beloved World’s Edge map is getting a number of exciting Bloodhound’s Tribe-themed changes, including but not limited to a night sky lit up by an aurora borealis, 3 brand new POIs (East Village, War Camp, Tree Settlements), Sorting Factory is back, Construction Stacks return to Fragment, and Rampart moves Big Maude on top of Landslide. The changes are all explained in lore, with Hammond scaling back planetary recovery efforts and kicking off a new feud with Bloodhound and the people of Talos. Bloodhound returns to Talos, then, to lead their tribe against Hammond, dismantling locations, shifting settlements, and new forests taking root. But in all of this, was the decision first to remake Bloodhound or did their rework come after plans for World’s Edge? Senior level designer Michael Shannon explained,
“The Bloodhound rework because we jumped on the opportunity to align with the rework because we saw an opportunity to basically conclude the story we’ve been telling with Bloodhound and World’s Edge for a few years now; aligning that with the rework felt like a really great opportunity that we couldn’t pass up.”
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New Weapon Stats and Looting Changes Remind Apex Players Who’s the Hunter
Giving Apex Legends players even more info to make key decisions has been a mainstay direction of Respawn Entertainment for years now, so the decision to finally give players true weapon stats lines up with making key information as available as possible. With the launch of Apex Legends Season 30, players will finally have concrete stat numbers and blocks to determine how key attachments influence or impact guns in Apex Legends. This change was spurred by the new Corrupted Attachments because these powerful items buff weapons, as all attachments do, but they also come with drawbacks. Respawn Game Designer Casey O’Brien spoke with me a little about how these attachments affect the risk/reward or push-pull of combat in Apex:
“At the highest level, Corrupted Attachments do exactly what you said. They are a kiss/curse mechanic…The idea behind that was really to add an extra layer of complexity and skill, like ‘when I’m looting, what do I want to pick up?’ A lot of the time, that starts and ends at your Amp, your weapon, especially in the weapon space, and that’s kind of it for the rest of the match. And Corrupted Attachments are really that extra layer: while you’re looting, while you’re passively running around the world, you find one of these, and you have to ask yourself, ‘do I want to take this? Is this going to benefit my loadout? Is this going to make me more powerful? Can I deal with the drawback, or do I leave it for someone else?’ So that’s really like the big concept around Corrupted Attachments, and we’re really excited to see what players do with them because of all the unique benefits and drawbacks. There are a lot of really cool combinations you get when you start looking at different weapons and what they do with each other.”
Bloodhound is the Star of Season 30
While there are a lot of exciting upcoming changes for Apex Legends Season 30, it’s clear that Bloodhound’s rework is the star. Fans can easily expect Bloodhound to get the “new character treatment” where their pick rates skyrocket for a few weeks, but the most interesting part is where it lands afterward. Bloodhound is one of the OGs of Apex Legends characters who was initially THE information-getter for some squads, and to see all this new information coming alongside them is definitely appropriate.
- Released
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February 4, 2019
- ESRB
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Teen / Blood, Violence, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)
- Publisher(s)
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Electronic Arts
