Apex Legends Reveals Mid-Season 28 Update Patch Notes

Respawn Entertainment has revealed the patch notes for the upcoming mid-Season 28 update for Apex Legends. As the battle royale nears the halfway point of its latest season, some big changes are coming. Both characters and weapons are being fine-tuned to improve the Apex Legends meta and improve the gameplay experience for players.

While Apex Legends might not be as popular as it once was, the game remains one of the most-played battle royales on Steam and other platforms. One reason for its success is the varied list of Legends and weapons that make fights feel fast and exciting. With each season of the game, Respawn introduces new content to keep the experience fresh. Additionally, the developer releases regular patches to balance the meta

Gibraltar is Getting a New Passive Ability

The next one of these major patches was recently revealed as the mid-Season 28 update and should bring exciting changes for longtime fans. It is worth noting that the release date was not specifically stated in the patch notes, but many believe that it is coming on March 24. As usual, this significant update will make substantial changes to several Legends. Among those getting buffs are Gibraltar, Wraith, and Wattson. Starting with Gibby, Respawn is giving him a new Passive. Known as Momentum Boost, this allows the character to get a speed boost after a few seconds of running unarmed or with guns that do not have a sprint speed restriction. In addition, his melee attack will now do twice as much damage to Hardlight. Beyond this new ability, Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection and Defensive Bombardment have received buffs, and new upgrades make them even more powerful. For example, the Triple Bombardment upgrade gives players three Ultimate charges at the cost of a reduced radius and number of missiles.

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)

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Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)Start

Wraith is Finally Getting a Major Buff

Gibraltar is not the only original Apex Legends character receiving a buff in the mid-Season 28 update. Following a gradual decline in pick rate over the years, Respawn has decided to improve Wraith’s Tactical and Ultimate abilities. Notably, the cooldown upgrades on her Tactical and Ultimate have been incorporated into her base kit, allowing her to enter the void more frequently. As a result of this change, new upgrades have been added that should make the character more effective on the battlefield. Specifically, the new Level 2 upgrade lets Wraith create a temporary Phase Dome when using her Ultimate that allows others to enter the void, while the Level 3 upgrade increases the duration of her Tactical and gives her a double jump in the void.

Wattson’s Fences Are Becoming More Dangerous

Finally, Wattson is getting some changes to make her kit more effective when interacting with Hardlight. According to Respawn, fences and the Interception Pylons near Hardlight can be used to rebuild and reinforce the mesh. Additionally, Wattson’s fences are now quicker to deploy, and the damage has been increased from 20 to 35.

Beyond these changes to Legends, the mid-Season 28 update is making a big change to the Hemlock. As noted in the patch notes, the Hemlock Breach AR is being added to the game in place of the regular version of the gun. This new version of the Hemlock is the next Elite Weapon to be introduced and features two new firing modes: Automatic and Breach Charge. Several other guns in Apex Legends are receiving tweaks in the upcoming patch, including the 30-30 Repeater and P2020. The RE-45 Burst is also notably remaining in the game after previously being expected to be replaced by the original light ammo version of the weapon.

Apex Legends Aftershock Event is Coming Soon

While these are some of the highlights of the update, they are far from the only changes mentioned in the patch notes. All things considered, Apex Legends should feel much different following the update. It is also worth noting that the Aftershock Event is starting on March 31 and runs until April 21. This limited-time event will bring changes to the Wildcard game mode in Apex Legends, along with new cosmetics, including a Prestige Skin for Fuse.

Apex Legends Mid-Season 28 Update -Patch Notes

AUDIO SYSTEMS CHANGES

We are making a couple adjustments to in-match audio to align with our continued commitment to provide the most informative audio experience possible.

• In response to community feedback, we have lowered the volume of Hardlight mesh shattering.
• As footstep audio acts as a primary means of tracking enemies who aren’t in front of you, we are increasing the volume of footsteps from enemies outside your POV – enemy footstep volume further increases as the source of the footsteps gets further behind you (ie. loud when beside you, louder when over your shoulder, even louder when directly behind you). We will continue to listen to player feedback and make impactful changes to polish the in-game experience for our community!

LEGENDS

GIBRALTAR

Dev Note: Your big bruddah has been sitting at the bottom of pick rate charts for a while now, so it was time to give him some love. With a new passive that will allow him to traverse and rotate quicker, some quality of life updates to his base kit and some meaningful upgrades to let you choose your playstyle. The Dome of Protection has become easier and easier to push these days so we wanted to give Gibraltar some better defenses and faster resets. We also wanted players to be able to upgrade into more versatility with his ultimate.

Passive

• New Passive – Momentum Boost
  • If Gibraltar maintains sprint speed for a couple of seconds he will get a speed boost.
  • This will only trigger while unarmed or if the weapon doesn’t have a sprint speed restriction (ex. The Fast Shotties Upgrade)
• Gibraltar punch will deal double damage to Hardlight

Tactical

• Cooldown on Dome of Protection reduced (was 17s, now 13s)

Ultimate

• Integrated the size increase upgrade into his base kit, increasing radius by 20%
• Call in time for the missiles has been sped up
• Can now throw your ultimate before the ultimate equip animation finishes

Upgrades

• Level 2
  • Thunder Dome: The dome becomes electrified when placed, and will deal 50 damage and slow the first enemy to enter
  • Healing Dome: Dome duration increases 4s and any player within the healing dome will get double small meds healing
• Level 3
  • Triple Bombardment: Splits the ultimate into 3 charges, reducing the radius and number of missiles for each
• Removed Big Bruddah, Bubble Bunker, Baby Bubble

WRAITH

Dev Note: Wraith’s pick rate popularity has been on a slow decline over the years; she’s starting to get overshadowed by other popular skirmishers. We wanted to address this by giving her some meaningful buffs to her base kit and by giving her some more interesting upgrade options that will provide more utility for her team.

Tactical

• Integrated the tactical cooldown reduction upgrade into her base kit (was 20s, now 15s)

Ultimate

• Integrated the ultimate cooldown reduction upgrade into her base kit (was 2.5 minutes, now 1.5 minutes)
• Increased casting speed animation for quicker activation

Upgrades

• Level 2
  • Phase Dome: When Wraith starts channeling her ultimate she will create a Phase Dome. This dome will last for 30s or until Wraith places her portal. Anyone who enters the Phase Dome will go into the void.
• Level 3
  • Phase Jumper: Wraith will stay in the void for longer when using her tactical (was 4s, now 6s) and will gain double jump while in the void

WATTSON

Dev Note: We wanted to give Wattson some unique ways to interact with Hardlight meshes and provide some quality of life updates to her kit.

Tactical

• Placing a fence in front of a Hardlight mesh will reinforce it; if the mesh is broken the fence will rebuild and reinforce it
• Increased fence damage (was 20, now 35)
• Reduced fence deployment time (was 1s, now 0.5s)

Ultimate

• When Wattson’s ultimate is placed it will reinforce Hardlight meshes in the zone of the pylon; if the mesh is broken it will rebuild and reinforce the mesh.

WEAPONS

AR

Dev Note: Breach and Clear! The Hemlok is our latest entry of Elite Weapons. This powerhouse has a custom built barrel pre-attached that provides excellent recoil stabilization, a fully integrated silencer, and a brand new recharging Breach Charge that lets you tear down enemy structures or break into their reinforced bunkers.

Hemlok Breach AR [Elite Weapon]

• Removed Burst & Single firing modes
• New Firing Mode: Automatic
  • Slow fire rate
  • Body Damage: 23
  • Headshot Damage: 32
  • Integrated Silencer
• New Firing Mode: Breach Charge
  • Single shot explosive
  • Cooldown: 15 seconds
  • Damage to players: 38 with radial falloff
  • Significant damage multiplier to Hardlight and structures

MARKSMAN

Dev Note: With our latest pass on Marksmans we were successful in bringing down the overall oppressiveness of our long ranged weapons but in the 30-30’s case we’ve dulled its fangs just a bit too much. So we’re giving back some of its base damage so it’s still a consistent and viable option without the incredible spikes those charged headshots can create.

30-30 Repeater

• Increased base damage to 43 (was 41)

PISTOL

Dev Note: The RE-45 Burst was our first foray into the Elite Weapon system and we had always intended to swap back to the OG automatic light version of the weapon. However, in this case, we feel the energy burst version of the RE-45 is a compelling iteration that carves out a more ownable place in the weapon roster. Moving back to its light version only muddies the design space around the R-99, Alternator, and the rest of the light weapons. Moving forward the RE-45 will be a permanent energy weapon.

RE-45 Burst

• Elite version is now the default version of the RE-45
• Removed Elite weapon visual treatment

P2020

• Decreased points required to unlock Hammerpoints to 425 (was 500)
• Base magazine size increased to 9 (was 8)

SHOTGUN

EVA-8

• Improved base reload speed

SMG

Dev Note: When we added the automatic trigger to the Prowler we also increased the delay between bursts to keep its overall power in check since we were increasing its ease of use substantially. However, we didn’t see as big a draw to it as we expected so we’re giving it back some of its snappyness so it feels competitive in CQC.

Prowler PDW

• Burst fire delay reduced
• Recoil improvements

MAPS

Olympus

Moved Elysium to a new location on the northeast corner of the map near Rift. The purpose of this change is to eliminate the forced contest between Somers University and Elysium in Ranked and Competitive. We have modified the terrain in this area to support the change, which includes the removal of a minor POI previously in this location.

Pubs & Ranked

• Olympus
• Storm Point
• World’s Edge

Mixtape

• March 24th, 2026 – May 5th, 2026
  • TDM: Skull Town, Fragment, Estates
  • Control: Labs, Thunderdome, Lava Siphon
  • Gun Run: Monument, Skull Town, Thunderdome

WILDCARD

Wildcard

• March 31st, 2026 – May 5th, 2026
• Broken Moon Wildcard

Charged Up (March 31 – Apr 21, 2026)

April Friends Day (Apr 1, 2026)

• We’re flipping this year’s celebration, zip in and make some new friends!

RANKED

Ranked Ladders (coming later this split)

BUG FIXES

LEGENDS

• Bloodhound – Killing dummies in the firing range will now trigger all appropriate “on knock” behavior
• Catalyst – Removed a dead spot for Piercing Spikes where enemies could sometimes stand near the center of it without taking damage
• Catalyst – In the firing range with friendly fire on, Piercing Spikes will no longer activate because the owner got within range
• Octane – Fixed issue where Stim Surge would remain in alt hand while using Akimbo
• Fuse – Level 3 upgrade Reignition now works properly against dummies in the firing range
• Fixed Sparrow’s SWAT scout skin appearing bright red at long distances
• Fixed Newcastle wall destroying Mad Maggie’s wrecking ball if deployed too closely
• Fixed parts of Catalyst as well as Conduit’s Heart Machine skin having visible portions while being revived by Mirage
• Fixed an issue where decals on Crypto’s Destiny Gundam Spec II skin would remain visible while he was cloaked

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Cleaned up the iron sight on the 30-30’s “Long-Distance Agony” skin to align with its others
• Can now use the double jump off Octane’s jump pad while healing

Alternator SMG

• Removed the extra hit markers (usually reserved for blast patterns on shotguns) when in Double Tap mode

Dev Note: These extra hit markers were making it a little more difficult to track enemies than intended so we’ve removed them to declutter the reticle space and improve combat visibility when landing shots.

Vault Keys

• Vault keys will no longer affect the colour of a deathbox

Dev Notes: Vault Keys can be an important piece of loot, but getting baited by a red box with the hopes of a Kraber to be dashed by a Vault Key can feel terrible. This change will retain their rarity but no longer let them drive a deathboxes rarity tier.

APEX BOTS

New In-Combat Healing System

• Apex Bots will attempt to find cover and heal when damaged during combat Use these moments to push!

New Target Acquisition and Awareness System

• Apex Bots will make more intelligent decisions around which target to focus on. They’ll be harder to sneak up on.

Improved Strafing

• Apex Bots can move toward their target while strafing, letting them close distance in a more aggressive way.

New Weapon Switching System

• Apex Bots will switch weapons based on the distance from the target. Get too close, and if Apex Bots have a shotgun – watch out!

Improved Bot Traversal

• Apex Bots will utilize the various movement mechanics around the map like ziplines, ziprails, jump towers and more, to traverse and pursue.

AUDIO

• Fixed the audio mix setting not saving properly on consoles
• Lowered volume of Hardlight mesh breaking, as per community feedback
• Increased volume of footsteps from enemies outside your field of view
  • Volume further increases as the source of the footsteps gets further behind you (ie. loud when beside you, louder when over your shoulder, loudest when directly behind you)

ENGINE

• PC: Apex now uses the Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) for microphone input.
  • This enables support in Windows 11 for the “Voice Clarity” audio enhancement, which you can enable to help remove unwanted background audio.
    • The option can be found in Window settings. Go to “System > Sound > Mic Properties” and look for “Audio Enhancements” in “Input settings”.
  • Note: if you have multiple microphones connected to your PC & the game is using the wrong one you can either…
    • Select a specific microphone in Apex’s Audio settings in the Voice Chat settings, see “Voice Chat Input Device” option.
    • Or set your mic “as default for communications” in Windows settings and then use the System Default option in Apex’s Voice Chat settings.
• Graphics:
  • Static objects now use bindless resources and batching to significantly reduce draw calls, improving baseline CPU performance for map rendering
  • Olympus uses improved algorithms to generate occlusion culling data structures, slightly improving CPU performance on the map.
  • PC: Uses ReBAR for faster uploads of data to the GPU, on systems that support it. This can reduce pop-in of models and textures and also use less time on the CPU, which can help performance stability.
• Visual improvements:
  • More accurate reflection intensity in dark areas
  • Improvements to the clarity of ambient occlusion and specular occlusion

Released

February 4, 2019

ESRB

T for Teen: Blood, Violence

Publisher(s)

Electronic Arts