Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale shooter, Apex Legends, received a major update on Monday including a new collection event, the Flashpoint limited-time game mode, and the launch of the cross-play features. Unfortunately, the patch also hit the game’s premiere assassin legend, Wraith, with a heartbreaking ninja-nerf.
In the crowded battle royale genre, Apex Legends stands out by allowing players to assume the roles of legends, or player-characters comparable to those of hero shooters like Overwatch and Valorant. Set in the same universe as Respawn’s Titanfall series, the game has established itself as a worthy competitor to Fortnite and PUBG, and continues to evolve with regular updates and LTMs.
Sometimes, beloved features must be sacrificed on the altar of competitive balance, however, and such was the case with Wraith’s, hunched-forward, arms-out running animation. The animation is an obvious reference to the way ninjas are portrayed as running in anime, most notably Naruto. The unique running technique briefly went viral when a news crew caught a participant in the Storm Area 51 Movement Naruto-running in the background last September.
While most players got a kick out of the Naruto run animation, which also features in Fortnite as an emote, the stance has proven itself to grant an unfair tactical advantage, as Wraith’s hunched profile is a harder target than characters who run while upright. And given Wraith’s already high win-rate, the aerodynamic ninja sprint had to go.
It seems like a fair decision, seeing how Wraith is one of the most effective characters in Apex Legends as of Season 6. In the patch notes, Respawn stated “we know her old sprint was iconic, and we hate to see it go,” but ultimately determined it was the most effective way to downgrade Wraith without further adjustments to her kit of core abilities. The developer even wrote that it may consider putting more power back into Wraith’s abilities based on how the animation change affects her character’s performance.
The meta may change substantially in the coming months, given the slew of new changes headed to Apex Legends in its next competitive season, due to kick off in November. Data miners recently revealed that Horizon will be Apex Legends‘ newest legend despite speculation that another leaked character named Valk would be coming to the game.
Data miners also revealed that players will soon be able to enjoy Apex Legends Halloween Event and the game’s Shadow Royale LTM later this month. The latter mode allows defeated players to resurrect as shadows a limited number of times, with enhanced melee, recovery, and movement abilities. The Naruto run, however, is still regrettably excluded.
Apex Legends is free to play now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with a forthcoming release planned for Nintendo Switch.
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