Apex Legends Season 12 review – Control saves Apex from going stale

Apex Legends Defiance is an impressive update with an improved Battle Pass from Season 11, but with the 9v9 Control mode being an LTM and not a permanent addition (for now), there’s a risk that Season 12 becomes stale very quickly after its departure.

Apex Legends recently reached its third anniversary but despite the game’s age, Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale is more popular than ever and has garnered a huge playerbase of loyal fans.

Releasing its twelfth season on February 8, ‘Defiance’ aimed to satisfy a lot of long-awaited community requests including a new LTM, Olympus map changes, and of course, the new Legend Mad Maggie.

While Season 12 delivered a set of impressive features and an improved Battle Pass, it runs the risk of becoming stale very quickly after the fan-favorite Control Mode disappears in a few weeks.

Apex Legends Defiance Key Details

• Price: Free
• Developer: Respawn Entertainment
• Release Date: February 8, 2022
• Platforms: Windows, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch

Apex Legends Defiance trailer

Mad Maggie – A fun Legend with a mismatched Passive

While Ash’s Titanfall roots bought her some favor with the community ahead of her Season 11 release, Mad Maggie’s entrance to the Outlands was slightly more muted with a lot of fans holding out hope that Respawn was planning another Forge scenario.

However, despite initial doubts from players, Maggie has been well received by the community with the devs providing her with an aggressive kit that pushes users to chase down enemies and actively engage in skirmishes. Her Riot Drill Tactical allows her to flush out enemies from behind cover and even offers a much-needed counter to Gibraltar’s bubble.

Although her Ultimate can feel slightly underwhelming compared to other characters on the roster, it’s an undeniably fun ability that again pushes Maggie players to close down their opponents and put them under pressure. She sits in the b tier in our Legend tier list.

Despite all of these positives, it’s Maggie’s Passive Warlord’s Ire that doesn’t seem to make much sense design and theme-wise. While the shotgun movement speed element of the ability may be slightly unoriginal, it at least fits her a theme as a Legend looking to get in the thick of the action and cause havoc.

However, the bizarre inclusion of x-ray vision doesn’t fit her character as a Rebel Warlord at all and comes off as a desperate attempt to allow Maggie to compete with the other scan and reveal Legends that have been added in recent seasons.

This certainly isn’t a dealbreaker and doesn’t detract from how fun Maggie is to play, but after tagging an enemy and seeing their silhouette run behind a wall, it’s easy to forget you’re playing the Freedom Fighter from Salvo.

Control LTM – A very impressive mode on a timer

After countless Reddit posts and complaints from the community, Respawn finally delivered a new LTM in Defiance with the incredible 9v9 Control. Providing players with fast-paced gameplay and a continuous stream of action that you can jump back into immediately after dying, the new mode fills a gap in Apex that isn’t offered by BR or Arenas.

The objective-based points system encourages teams to work together to protect a specific area or abandon a post completely in hopes of capping another location. Not only that, the wide variety of loadouts cater to any playstyle, whether you’re an aggressive shotgun and SMG player, or someone who prefers to take sniper pop shots from afar.

Without a doubt, balance is certainly an issue for Control with certain objectives being difficult to re-take once captured and specific Legends rising up as overwhelmingly powerful. However, as it’s tagged as an LTM, a lot of the community are more forgiving of these downsides, as it’s definitely meant to be more mindless fun than a hardcore competitive battleground.

Unfortunately, it’s the impressive nature of the limited-time mode that may lead Season 12 to become stale extremely quickly once it’s removed. As it stands, Control is definitely the landmark feature of the update, and with it set to be removed at the beginning of March, Defiance runs the risk of disappointing players only three weeks after its release.

While there are obvious hints that Respawn plan to bring the mode back later, maybe even later in the same season, snatching back the most celebrated part of the update could generate a lot of resentment from the community.

Olympus map changes – New POI’s to explore

Making its return in Season 12, Olympus has been re-added to the map rotation with the floating city receiving some major changes in Defiance. A total of four POIs in Terminal, Shifted Grounds, Phase Driver, and North East Path have all been tweaked or overhauled, resulting in a fresh experience for players diving down onto the futuristic map.

Phase Driver is by far the most exciting addition, with Respawn creating a circular POI that surrounds a huge phase device. This unstable technology can be activated to grant players three loot rollers with one of them guaranteed to be gold tier. However, using the device comes with a risk, as all surrounding squads will be alerted by a huge noise once it’s activated.

This interactive element to POIs always draws in more players and although Phase Driver hasn’t been on Olympus for long, it’s already a hotspot in Season 12.

Battle Pass – An improvement on Season 11

Although celebrated for its value at the beginning, Apex Legends’ Battle Pass system is beginning to sour among the community with the rewards not meeting players’ expectations in successive seasons.

So, following Season 11’s lackluster Battle Pass, filled with disappointing rewards, there were hopes that Respawn would aim to knock it out of the park when it came to cosmetic progression in Defiance.

Luckily, the Season 12 reward track is certainly better than the Battle Pass that arrived in Escape, even if it lacks the reinvention or overhaul players were hoping for. It’s more of what we’ve seen before with a strong set of skins for a variety of Legends, but also a lot of filler cosmetics that the majority of players will never use.

While Loba and Seer’s Legendary skins are standout cosmetics from the pass, the reactive Hemlok unlocked at the end of the track doesn’t feel like enough of a reward for how much XP it requires.

Although the Season 12 Battle Pass has been purchased by players without much backlash, it feels like these rewards are still just satisfactory, rather than truly worth the grind.

An improvement on Season 11 is all well and good, but ultimately the Battle Pass still doesn’t offer enough meaningful rewards that push players to jump onto the game every single day.

Rating: 8/10

Season 12 of Apex Legends provides a satisfying set of additions that deliver plenty of content for players to get stuck into at release, but how long will it last?

The arrival of the Rebel Warlord Mad Maggie has given the community a chance to cause havoc across the Outlands and have an unbelievable amount of fun doing it. However, her mismatched x-ray Passive does raise questions about balance and design choices, and whether scan & reveal abilities are going to continue to become a staple aspect of every new Legend.

While the Battle Pass and Olympus map changes deliver exactly what we’d expect from a typical Apex update, the Control LTM stands out as the landmark feature of Defiance.

Without the new mode, Season 12 loses its spark and as the LTM is scheduled to leave in early March, there’s a chance the community is left frustrated and disappointed with the remaining content that Defiance brought to the table.

Ultimately, the reputation of Season 12 hinges on the Control mode, and with Respawn set to remove the update’s landmark feature three weeks after release, Defiance is on a timer.