Apex Legends Ring Fury Takeover and new Heat Shield: How does it work?

For the Chaos Theory Collection event, Respawn are implementing the Ring Fury takeover in Apex Legends. This brand new mode will turn the ring into your worst enemy – even more than normal. So here’s how it works, and how to win.

This mode is specifically an ‘Escalation Takeover’ – which means it will change and progress (escalate) as the event goes on. Starting on March 9, and ending March 23, the mode will evolve significantly from start to finish.

If you’re not caught up on everything else coming in the event, it includes the Caustic Town Takeover, a bunch of new skins, Bangalore’s heirloom, no-fill matchmaking and lots of weapon/Legend changes.

As for Ring Fury, the mode still follows regular BR rules, but the big change, as the name implies, is to the ring.

Ring Fury mode in Apex Legends

In a regular match, the ring simply moves in each round, reducing the playable area. In Ring Fury, this still happens, but, within the ring itself, smaller pockets of ring (called ‘ring flares’) will appear.

These ring flares will slowly expand, and if you get caught in them, will damage you as the ring normally does. You’ll get a warning on the mini-map, and Legends will call it out too.

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The obvious answer to this is to simply avoid the Ring Flare, but this might not always be possible. So, Respawn are adding a whole new item into the mix: Heat Shields.

What are Heat Shields in Apex?

You will spawn in with a Heat Shield during the event, and be able to drop it like a Gibraltar Dome Shield, but only to protect you and your squad from ring damage.

Once you’ve used it, you’ll have to find another (they’ve been added as ground loot too). If you’re inside the dome, and it’s been ‘activated’ by taking ring damage, healing speed is increased by 50% and revives are 25% faster. You won’t get these bonuses if the shield is in the safe area though.

The damage of the ring still increases though, so in later rounds, the heat shield won’t last very long at all. Heat Shield is a permanent item too, so it will remain in the loot pool after the event.

New Survival slot

To make space for the Heat Shield in your inventory, a new survival slot has been added. Items like the Mobile Respawn Beacon will also use this spot now instead.

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The bad news here though, is that the button to use your survival slot now replaces the default weapon inspect button on both PC and consoles. To inspect your weapon on console, you’ll now need to use the action wheel.

Escalation Takeovers

The Ring Fury Takeover is a new kind of takeover, called Escalation. This means that every few days throughout the two-week event, Respawn are “going to turn some knobs to crank up the prevalence, timing, and size of Ring Flares. By the end of the event, you can expect five different stages of escalation.”

The Chaos Theory Collection event starts in Apex Legends on March 9, and runs until March 23.