Apex Legends Season 24 early patch notes: All weapons buffed, massive armor changes, more

Season 24 of Apex Legends may not feature a new character or new map, but the developers have instead focused on sweeping changes to core gameplay, with a boatload of balancing changes, and new features. These are our early patch notes for everything we know so far about the new season.

One of the big new features is weapon Arsenals, which sound somewhat similar to the loadout system in Warzone, except they are constantly available on the map. These allow you to gear up with the exact weapons and attachments you want at any time.

Then, the balancing team at Respawn has gone all out this season, buffing every weapon in the game with more damage, which is sure to make fights faster.

On top of that, all helmets have been removed, with the exception of a new, and very rare, mythic helmet. And Armor levels are now capped at level three, unless you find this rare new helmet, which overrides it to red armor.

There’s also a new ‘Road to Ranked’ system for new players, and assault legends have been given big buffs too. Here are all the changes we know about in Season 24 of Apex Legends, ahead of the official patch notes dropping closer to the launch of the season on February 11.

Apex Season 24 early patch notes

Respawn Entertainment

Weapon Arsenals

• Arsenal stations are located across the map in every POI, letting players choose which weapons and ammo types they want to run
• Arsenals are visible from the dropship when dropping in, and are marked on the map and hud
• Ammo types contained at arsenals are randomized each match
• Can also get upgrades at the station with attachments and an optic

Weapon changes

• All weapons have received a damage increase
• Headshot multipliers adjusted to be consistent
• Added lasers to the CAR SMG

Helmets and Armor

• White blue and purple helmets are completely removed from the game
• Headshot damage will now be a consistent value for every weapon – no longer variable based on the enemy’s helmet tier
• Armor is capped at level three from gaining evo
• New mythic helmet: Overrides a player’s armor to red, but provides no headshot damage reduction. These helmets are ultra rare – only in mythic bins and late-game care packages

Healing changes

• Cells and syringes stack up to six in inventory
• Cells and syringes take less time to use
• Crawl speed when knocked significantly increased

Legend changes

• Assault class Legends:
  • New perk, Stowed Reload: auto reloads any stowed weapon after 2 seconds (gold mag will also do the same this season)
  • New perk, Combat Reserve: they get two specific slots in inventory for grenades
  • New perk, Battle Surge: when assault legend cracks an enemy shield, they gain battle surge, which grants a temporary speed boost, faster reloads, and highlights the cracked target for their team
• Ash buffs
  • Ultimate – can travel farther, move through it faster, and has improved endpoint detection
  • Tether will now snare from its own location rather than the enemy target’s location
  • Passive – no more data knife, instead has omni-directional dash ability, called “predator’s pursuit’. Allows her to rapidly reposition in close combat, or close the distance quickly on a tethered target. Can upgrade it to two charges through her upgrade tree
• Ballistic buffs
  • Integrated sling and dual tac charge upgrades into his base kit
  • Upgrade now doubles his tac charge
  • His sling can now carry crate weapons, with infinite ammo when ult is active
• Support class
  • Removing heal expert perk

Ranked & matchmaking changes

• Road to Ranked:
  • Removed account level requirement for Ranked
  • Replaced with challenges, for players to prove they are skilled enough, and good enough team players. Players need to complete all of these challenges to unlock ranked if they haven’t unlocked ranked already
  • Players who already had Ranked access will keep it
• Matchmaking
  • Skill display now shown in unranked lobbies too

Mythic Weapons

• Brand new versions of weapons inspired by legends
• First one is the Wraith-inspired mythic R-301
  • Void-inspired look with brand new animations for reloads and enemy knocks, and new sounds.
  • Is available for purchase and also comes with mythic ordnance grenade skin for free during the Milestone event
  • Players can acquire the mythic R-301 by opening event packs for a chance to acquire it, as one of 36 possible prizes for the Milestone Event. Then you can use mythic shards to unlock the next tier which comes with more “goodies”

That’s all the information we have so far about Season 24 of Apex Legends. Respawn will likely release the full patch notes with all the fine details on February 10, the day before the Season goes live in-game.

We will update this article with the full patch notes as soon as they are available.