Face Off in the Future Icons Event

Attention, Legends! It may be summer in the Outlands, but class is still in session. Our mid-season update brings with it the Future Icons Event, running from June 24-July 15, 2025. Take on a new variant of a favorite, Arenas: Duels, featuring 1v1s with no abilities, no heals, and no excuses. Unlock smart new Legendary Legend Skins, Epic Weapon skins, and Wattson’s “Apex Icon” Prestige Skin with matching Dive Trail via Future Icons Event Packs. Speaking of our scholarly Paquette, she’s recharged for split two with buffs worthy of her power: faster fence building, electrifying doors, and slowing enemies (including a particularly pesky prodigy). We also gave Echo’s mom some love too—Vantage mains rejoice! Both Wattson and Vantage will be unlocked for the duration of the event so everyone has a chance to try them out. Time to target greatness and rise to the challenge.

ARENAS: DUELS

Test your mettle in a new limited-time Arenas variant: Duels. Chain 1v1 duels throughout a 5-minute match on a server of 30 players while a leaderboard tracks your performance. Each Legend, loadout, and spawn location are randomized, but both you and your opponent will be mirrored—pushing you to make the best of each moment on even ground. And with abilities turned off until July 15, it’s all about core gun skills and movement. This is Arenas: Duels at its purest. Also a great way to warm-up for those looking to get back into the swing before jumping into their primary modes.

Later this split, we'll update the experience by turning on Legend abilities for a new and exciting tactical layer. We’ll see who the real Legends of leaderboards are—unless you opt to hide it for some more casual vibes.

REWARD TRACK

Complete daily event challenges to earn up to 1,400 points per day to unlock Future Icons rewards and check your progress for all four event badges. 

EVENT ITEMS

Fresh new limited-time cosmetics are up for grabs as you progress through the Future Icons Event, including Legendary skins for Rampart, Octane, and the Peacekeeper.

All items will be possible drops in Future Icons Event Packs† for the duration of the event, with each pack having a chance to unlock Wattson’s Prestige skin, “Apex Icon,” complete with matching Dive Trail. Each event pack contains one event item and two standard items, and there are no duplicates of event items in these packs.

PATCH NOTES

BALANCE UPDATES 

Gold Weapon Rotation

• Spitfire, R-301, R-99, Flatline, Akimbo Mozambiques

LEGENDS

Wattson

• Passive: Spark of Genius
  • 50% faster Ult accel consumption
  • Passive Shield Regen increased to 2s (was 1s)
• Tactical: Perimeter Security
  • Increase fence node HP to 50 (was 25)
  • Cooldown reduced to 4s (was 15s)
  • Fences now slow sliding and jumping enemies, and consume cooldowns on Ash’s dash and Sparrow’s double jump
  • Fences placed across doors will electrify the doors
    • Stuns enemies when they open an electrified door or kicks it in
    • Electrification ends if the fence is obstructed or the fence is removed, and restarts when the fence is active again
  • Removed doors exploding when opened into the line of a fence
• Upgrades: Level 2
  • Falling Stars: integrated into base kit
  • NEW Help is Here: gain all support perks (access Support Bins, faster revives with health regen, gain MRB with Banners)
  • NEW Ultimate Conductor: damage to enemies is converted to Ult charge and knocks give a burst of 30% Ult charge
• Upgrades: Level 3
  • NEW Energized Healer: gain double small med healing
  • Power Pylon: double Ult HP, healing rate, and capacity

Dev Notes: We’re really excited to see the new Electrified Door mechanic added to the game, making it so enemies need to respect the fences that much more. In addition, Wattson’s reduced Perimeter Security cooldown should make setting up fences way snappier and will make it less punishing if you have to move on.

Vantage

• Shrank Vantage’s upper body hitbox to better match her character model
• Passive: Spotter’s Lens
  • Can now ping up to 3 enemies at a time
  • Can see the health bars of targeted enemy
  • Pinging an enemy will reveal their position when further than 50m away (was 100m)
• Tactical: Echo Relocation
  • Echo will auto-recall after you jump
  • Faster jump activation time
  • Increased base and max distance Echo can fly by 10m
  • Integrated Bat Bounce into base kit
  • Reduced time to redeploy guns after jump to 0.2s (was 0.5s)
  • Widened the FOV that Echo needs to be in to jump to
• Ultimate: Sniper’s Mark
  • Integrated Ultimate Reload upgrade into base kit
    • Ultimate accelerators are used 50% faster, and provide 2 extra bullets
  • Laser is now hidden until Vantage shoots
    • Laser lasts for 15s, timer refreshes with each shot
  • Laser is now more representative of aim
• Upgrades: Level 2
  • NEW Controlling my Prey: gain access to Ring Consoles and zone overcharge
  • NEW Improved Mark: marked enemy icon is visible through walls, briefly highlights enemies, and reveals their health bar to your squad upon mark
• Upgrades: Level 3
  • NEW Tactical Cooldown: reduce Tac's cooldown by 5s
  • NEW Sniper Cover: adds Gun Shield to Sniper’s Mark

Dev Notes: Vantage’s Echo Relocation improvements should make her feel way snappier, and we’ve been having lots of fun playing with the new version of Echo internally. Lining up shots in those late-game scenarios with Sniper’s Mark should be easier now with the laser changes, and being able to upgrade into Gun Shield.

Ash

• Passive: decreased dash cooldown to 8s (was 10s)
• Tactical: slightly decreased tether strength when pulling hard (like when using movement abilities)
• Upgrades: Level 2
  • Dual Breach: moved to Level 2
  • NEW Charged Knock: gain HP regen on a knock
• Upgrades: Level 3
  • Ghost in the Machine: removed
  • Greedy Snare and Twin Snares: moved to Level 3

Dev Notes: we want to re-balance Ash this season by tamping down some of the parts of her kit that are frustrating to play against, while preserving the fun of dashing around the battlefield. Lowering the base cooldown of her dash will hopefully offset losing double-dash. In addition, swapping her Level 2 and Level 3 upgrades will bring her double Ult charge upgrade to earlier in the match, keeping you and your team mobile.

Alter

• Ultimate: Void Nexus
  • Chase portal usage warning delay reduced to 3.5s (was 5s)
  • Chase portal activation delay reduced to 6s (was 8s, Previous Hotfix)
  • Cooldown after usage increased to 60s (was 30s, Previous Hotfix)

Dev Notes: Overall, we felt Alter teams were a little too hard to punish as they tried to reset through her Void Nexus.

Ballistic

• Tactical: Whistler
  • Damage on activation reduced to 15 (was 20)
  • Damage from overheat reduced to 15 (was 30, Previous Hotfix)
• Ultimate: Tempest
  • Removed time extension from knocks (Previous Hotfix)
• Upgrades
  • Extra Bullets: moved to Level 2
  • Lasting Bullet: moved to Level 3

Dev Notes: We felt Ballistic’s Whistler was dealing too much damage for how consistent it is to hit.

Conduit

• Tactical: Radiant Transfer
  • Reduce cooldown to 21s (was 31s, Previous Hotfix)
  • Reduce recharge delay after damage to 1s (was 2s)

Mirage

• Tac & Ult: decoys now swap weapons when you do and also properly holster melee weapons

AMMO & ATTACHMENTS

GRENADES

Arc Star

• Explosion reduces momentum if hit while in-air or sliding
• Explosion consumes the cooldown on Ash’s dash and Sparrow’s double jump

HOP-UPS

Gun Shield Generator

• Can now be used by R-301

Accelerator

• Removed from: Devotion, Mastiff, Bocek, and Sentinel
• Added to: Havoc, Flatline, and Mozambique

WEAPONS

AR

Havoc AR (Previous Hotfix)

• Improved recoil
• Increased damage to 20 (was 19)

Hemlok Burst AR

• Reduced burst fire delay

MARKSMAN

30-30 Repeater

• Reduced Skullpiercer headshot damage
  • Uncharged: 80 (was 86)
  • Charged: 120 (was 130)

Bocek Compound Bow (Previous Hotfix)

• Explosive arrow on hit damage increased to 55 (was 40)
• Increased rate of fire
• Max charge damage increased to 65 (was 55)

SHOTGUN

Mastiff

• New ADS firing animation: returns the weapon to center screen sooner

Dev Note: If fired at max speed, the Mastiff optic never fully returned to center screen making target acquisition between shots a bit of a guessing game. This new animation has the weapon returning to center screen sooner allowing you to more accurately line up your shots.

SMG

Prowler Burst PDW

• Improved horizontal recoil in burst fire and full-auto
• Reduced burst fire delay

SNIPER

Sentinel

• Increased rechamber speed when energized

MAPS

Pubs & Ranked

• Kings Canyon
• World’s Edge
• Broken Moon

Mixtape (June 24-August 5, 2025)

• TDM: Fragment, Party Crasher, Skull Town
• Control: Caustic, Production Yard, Lava Siphon
• Gun Run: Skull Town, Monument, The Core

MODES

LTM: Arenas: Duels without abilities (June 24-July 15, 2025)

• Fight 1v1: win as many 1v1 Duels as you can in the time given
• Even Duels: dueling players are assigned matching Legends and weapons for even ground
• Leaderboard: tracks players’ performance over the course of the match
• No abilities: abilities will be turned off for the first part of the event, allowing players to focus on gun skills and movement
• Three maps: Encore, Habitat, and Party Crasher available at launch with a variety of spawn points

LTM: Arenas: Duels with abilities (July 15-August 5, 2025)

• Abilities: Legends abilities are turned on for a new exciting strategic layer

RANKED

• Ranked Tier Display: now shows the tier distribution per squad instead of per individual player. Ranked matchmaking for premade squads is done based on the highest RP value in the squad. This change will group all squad members, premade or otherwise, to show the entire squad based on the highest Rank Tier in that squad.
• Ladder Champion Dive Trail: granted to all players that completed the Ladder Champion placement Challenge in Split 1 and will be accessible for all of Split 2. If you wish to retain access to the Dive Trail, you must complete the same Challenge in this current split. 

BUG FIXES

• Audio: walking while holding a Bocek will once again produce third-person footstep audio
• Arrows
  • Should once again despawn properly
  • Those shot into the Arena’s barrier wall will no longer stay there once the round started
• Arsenals: will no longer steal ammo out of your inventory
• Firing Range
  • Artemis should no longer spam spawn meow
  • Arrows can no longer be picked-up across Firing Range instances
• PC: Full shader compiles should no longer occur every time the game loads, especially after a Windows update
• Tac no longer occasionally used with some Legends when holding Akimbo weapons while activating Ult
• "Tracked and Recommended" tab once again shows tracked challenges in match summary
• Tracked challenges lobby widget now shows the further progressed challenge of the two

LEGENDS

• Alter
  • Fixed issue where any legend would cancel the void nexus activation if you tried to travel to it while holding an ultimate in your hands.
  • Fixed issue where Lifeline would cancel the void nexus activation if she did a hard fall impact.
  • Fixed enemy and dummy highlighting in the void and from Alter's tactical not working when friendly fire was enabled in the firing range.
  • Fixed issue where Alter's teammate would not get an MRB when crafting banners if Alter had selected the "Friends" upgrade, but was dead.
• Ash: Greedy Snare now plants correctly after the first hit
• Mirage: will now consistently exit cloak when hit while healing
• Sparrow: Stinger Bolt no longer instantly break Revenant’s Shadow Shroud

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Arsenals: increased the interact size of the consoles, making it less likely that you unintentionally grab a new weapon while enhancing your current weapon
• Battle Pass gifting has returned
• Fixed misprediction hitches when taking ring damage or when ending heals
• Gibraltar’s arm shield and Gun Shield Generators are now accounted for in the Death Recap
• Rampart can now interact with more things while holding Sheila
• Re-wrote the 'hold to use' system to make it more accurate and players should swap weapons on accident less often as a result
• Thermite Grenade Visual Updates
  • Added detonation FX
  • Added new elements to update visuals: updated spark materials, hotter bottom to see better the thermite AOE, all assets dissolve faster
  • Reduced number of particles
  • Reduction in overdraw
  • Updated sparks to enhance the feel

AUDIO

• De-prioritized friendly zip-lines so enemies will always be played
• De-prioritized non-threatening enemy footsteps (bodyfall and downed) to ensure potential threats are always played
• Experimenting with lowered volume/inaudible friendly footsteps when under significant threat—let us know if this is helpful!
• Reduced volume of Hovertanks in Kings Canyon

Dev note: Thanks to those who've uploaded audio logs when prompted after an abnormal amount of interruptions were detected. Our team is reviewing all current reports for potential action. If you encounter this prompt, please continue to send your reports as additional data will assist with investigations.

GRAPHICS

• PC
  • Improved GPU uploading performance, which can increase performance stability and reduce missing models or textures for some players
  • Launch argument -no_render_on_input_thread has been made the default for players with 8 or more cores on their CPU. This improves performance stability and input latency, especially when paired with high-polling rate mice or controllers. It can still be enabled manually for players with fewer CPU cores, and it can be disabled with -render_on_input_thread.
  • Reduced CPU overhead of multithreading on machines with many CPU cores

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