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Thanks for Joining Our Revenant Reborn AMA!
On August 21, 2023, the dev team for Apex Legends™ joined r/ApexLegends for a Revenant Reborn AMA following the launch of his rework with Resurrection. We hope you’ve been enjoying the simulacrum of the season, and thank you for your questions and feedback around Revenant and Apex Legends™ as a whole.
We’ve compiled a list of all of the questions that the team were able to answer during our two-hour long session. Please visit r/ApexLegends for the full thread.
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GENERAL
Anything you learned about reworking a legend?
Sooo much. This being our first legend rework, there was a lot to figure out when it came to the process to create the rework and how crazy we wanted to go with everything. It took a lot of collaboration between all the teams to get him to the finish line. There was a lot to figure out between a whole new set of abilities and all of their animations and effects, his new lore, and giving him a whole new base look.
Can you put his extra shields near his health bar? It's really weird to have to look in 2 places to see total shields.
Thank you for the feedback! We wanted his shadow health and timer to be one of your main focuses while your ultimate is active, which is why we placed it top center on the screen so you can easily see what its status is during a fight. Since you generally are only ever taking damage to one or the other, we felt it made sense to bring more attention to the health of your shadows front and center.
Did Revenant reborn take as much time to make as previous legends or was it easier or harder to deal with?
I think the original intent was for it to take less time! In practice, I think it was a little bit of both? It was easier because we were working off a character who we knew intimately and had a strong vision of what kind of feel we wanted this new Revenant to have, but we went through A LOT of iterations of what his kit could be before we were happy and felt like we had a truly scary, REBORN feeling Revenant. So in the end it didn't end up being that much less work than a brand new legend.
Reworking a legend like this was a whole new experience for everyone on the team, so it took a ton of collaboration and problem solving across teams to figure out all the little details about how it was going to work and be set up on the backend. Huge props to everyone who helped get him together!
Do Simulacrum dream of robot sheep that think they are normal sheep?
Yes. And in those dreams the robot sheep become self aware and rise up to dominate all real sheep, then step through the void into reality to ensure they enslave all sheep.
Do you feel like Revenant reborn was a success in terms of bringing Revenant back to relevancy?
Yes. The community reaction has been very positive and we're seeing players get the gameplay design of the new kit and effectively feeling the fantasy shift in their play.
Is there a way to better see the damage done on a Rev shield? It’s so small now and very hard to read. Hoping it can just be the size of the normal damage numbers, maybe colored differently.
Right now the main way of telling how much health is remaining on the shield is the red hexagons that appear when you damage the shield, but we'll definitely be making adjustments to make sure the damage done is more visible and that everything is properly adhering to colorblind settings! Soon!
Is pulling out a weapon during his Tactical when he slides off a highground a bug that will be fixed, a bug that's interesting to see and won't be touched or intentional?
This is a bug. We are looking to fix it.
One of Rev's biggest drawbacks has always been the size of him…are there any changes you'd make that could improve this?
This is a point that has been called out for a while with Rev. We're limited by the model design with his overall size and frame, and do have animations adjusted to try and mitigate the problems you describe. One of the benefits of his new, more mobile design, is that he can take advantage of his mobility to reposition or use his Ult to help mitigate his larger hitbox while being aggressive or escaping. There aren't any plans on the table at the moment to improve this further.
Overall the rework seems successful and enjoyable. Any chance y'all are gonna fix his funny teeth though?
Booking an Apex dentist ...in THIS economy!?
Was his rework abilities inspired by c*ckroaches? Like seriously, he climbs like one, he leaps(fly) towards enemies, and has an Ult that makes him hard to kill
He's actually more inspired by venomous snakes and spiders. The spider was part of his inspiration from the begining with his climb, and the snakes took shape with the redesign of his new hood from what our Lead Concept Artist has mentioned.
Was there any inspiration behind Revenant’s new design?
Our Lead Character Artist wanted Rev to look like the next level in evolution for a murder bot… sleeker, scarier and fresh off the assembly line. They tried out quite a few different looks, but found when they pushed his look to look less humanistic, leaning into into some of the visual cues of venomous snakes and spiders (letting our collective human fear of poisonous things do some of the work for us) he began to achieve the intimidation factor they wanted. A built in grin just topped off his next level nightmare ninja factor.
What happened to the episodes? Why are there only 4 images that were all released pre-season in there?
We've been exploring other forms of in-game storytelling outside of episodes that you'll start seeing in the future. Right now, the episodes are meant to help players understand the story that's currently happening in the game.
When Rev is in Ult, Vantage sniper shots don’t mark him. Was this by design or an oversight?
That was unintentional, we have a fix for that incoming soon!
Where is his totem going? New legend or existing?
There are currently no plans for his totem.
Why didn't [you] introduce Revenant reborn as a separate legend?
Revenant Reborn was an opportunity to return to a favorite Legend, who was under-performing and whose kit just wasn't living up to the promise of his fantasy in the current version of the game. So there was an internal goal to make Revenant scary, intimidating and give him a play pattern that fit his fantasy.
Having two Legends share the same silhouette, skins, base-animations but having two radically different kits at the same time would be very difficult to parse in game. And would have done little to improve the original Revenant's place in the game overall.
Why didn't you make a single new finisher for my boy?
Hmmm... that's a good idea. ;)
ABILITIES
Any plans to improve Revenant’s climbing or the maps specifically in the case of overhangs just barely messing with [his] Passive?
No current plans. We're aware of quite a few buildings that interfere with Revenant's wall climbing, and his pounce helps a lot to scale some of those buildings, but not all. Something we're definitely aware of, but we don't have a timeline for a fix right now.
Are there any plans to make some changes to indicators both for his Tactical and his Ult? Also some clear way to know when his overshield is broken and you’re actually doing damage to his base shields and heath?
Hearing this feedback a lot, we definitely tried adding in a landing indicator during prototyping but it tended to promote players jumping right into bad situations and dying, or spending a lot of time lining up a perfect jump instead of focusing on closing the gap or repositioning quickly. So we decided to move away from having an indicator.
For the Ultimate, if you don't see his demon wings around him and he's just covered in his shadows, he's fully vulnerable. So hit him hard! Once those wings appear though, definitely be careful!
He’s good but I miss his shut up balls. Can we get his silence back with melee?
There are no plans to add Silence back to his kit, and we generally don't want to encourage melee with ability benefits.
Is there any way to give Revenant the ability to wallbounce like other characters?
We're aware of Revenant's differences to other legends around wall bouncing, it's something we're investigating but we don't have a timeline for right now.
Was the ability to cancel the leap animation by sliding off an edge/super gliding intentional or coincidental, and will it be changed?
It was not intentional and we're actively looking to fix it. Revenant's new movement has a lot of power on its own, and part of its internal counterplay revolves around not allowing weapons to come out until landing. We're hoping to shore up exploits that get around this intended design.
Why is his super jump not much louder and/or accompanied by a flashy visual cue?
Revenant's Shadow Pounce intended to be loud and aggressive given its power potential. There are audio and visual cues surrounding the ability to push this. If this isn't the case, there may be bugs to investigate, or larger falloff ranges to push out and accomplish this goal. As we've done before (Octane's Jump Pad), we'll try to address these in future patches if that's the case.
TACTICAL
Are you planning to tweak cooldown time on Rev's new Tactical? Currently it feels too long imo, it would be nice if it functioned like Pathfinder's Tactical, where depending on distance traveled the cooldown is shorter or longer.
Hearing this request a lot. We'll certainly consider it in the future, but Rev has a unique way of regaining his Tactical through his Ult that we're evaluating first.
Currently the more you look up while using Rev's Tactical the shorter you travel, is this intentional or a bug?
Intentional. Rev's pounce is meant to go forward (to "dive") much more than it's meant to gain height - his wall climb Passive helps on that front. We tried landing indicators in the past, but with the charge mechanic and desire to constantly move, it was more distracting than desirable and made players try to perfectly line up a pounce rather than just learn the range and feel through play - which feels much more intuitive over time.
Is his short Q supposed to have a reduced cooldown much like PF? This only seems to apply to his Ult.
At the moment no. But it is something we could consider. As you've noted, he has opportunities within his Ult that restore his Tactical faster. We're evaluating those first.
Is [his] Tactical ability’s cooldown going to change at all? Similar [to] how Pathfinder’s tac cooldown is determined on his distance? Was there ever any thought into giving [him] fortified based on his hit box size?
It's certainly a possibility. At the moment, Revenant has a unique way to earn his Tactical back more frequently when in his Ultimate and we'll be monitoring the overall success of that first. Given the power of the movement utility, we're comfortable with the choice it makes for players - use it for distance at the cost of charge up, or use it for a fast, short reposition. Different scenarios make both viable, and we'll monitor how they perform and make adjustments when needed.
As for fortified, the idea has been tossed around, but we're very conservative with this perk, and generally if a Legend has strong offensive movement utility as a core part of their kit, the larger hitbox is more justified without the damage reduction. Unlike Caustic, Gibby and Newcastle, Legends like Revenant (now) and Pathfinder have really strong mobility tools and it's harder to justify making them take less damage overall as well.
Is there any chance you guys can give Revenant some sort of indicator as to his trajectory and/or landing spot when using his Tactical ability?
We actually tried this early on in prototyping, but we found it often encouraged players to jump directly onto groups of enemies, generally leading to them dying quickly and getting frustrated. It also caused a lot more hesitation, making players spend a lot of time trying to just get that perfect jump right where they wanted, rather than it being the fast catch up and engagement tool it was meant to be. Not to mention it often lied to the player about the actual landing spot due to your air control. Shadow Pounce was never meant to be a precision focused ability, it was always geared towards giving you a means to close the gap quickly, and leaning into your wall climb in case you just landed short of that ledge you were trying to jump onto.
Rev's Tactical is a little bit awkwardly designed. It could be improved in a handful of ways:
- if the cooldown had a similar system to Pathfinders
- if it didn't take so long to charge
- if it didn't slow you down when you're charging it
- if the vertical jump wasn't so laughable
- if mantling short objects/walls with it fully charged didn't automatically make you jump and travel literally nowhere except upwards in place by a couple meters. No idea if this is a bug or a feature but it's seriously detrimental to his ability to actually move and survive.
Would you ever consider any of the above ideas or have anything else planned for buffs/nerfs?
- Cooldown mechanics are something we can look into - keen on how his Ult interacts with his cooldown foremost before we explore more frequency of pounces.
- Part of the counterplay for a powerful movement mechanic. It shouldn't be free if you want to go far.
- There is no movement speed penalty while charging - the FOV shift might give that impression?
- You got the gist of the design here actually. The pounce is more for forward actions - it's not great for vertical - and that's to give it its own feel and effective playspace and allow strong synergy with the Passive. We've found that as you learn this, and play to his strengths the adaptation makes his movement style feel ownable.
- Pretty sure this is a bug.
We'll look at all the feedback coming in on Rev and evaluate him for any additional buffs and nerfs he might need soon. :) We know that there are some buildings in certain maps that don't have Rev-friendly ledges. There are no plans on how to tackle this yet, but we hear the frustration and have felt it ourselves. The move from Assault to Skirmisher was due to his play pattern shift. He's less disruptive to enemies with his abilities and more hit-and-run tactics now, which is more key to the Skirmisher class. Really glad to hear you're picking up the murder bot again! We're excited to hear that people are finding him fun to play!
What if [you] gave [the silence ability] back to Revenant as a silence shockwave when he hits the ground after using his Tactical. Would that be broken or nah?
His pounce originally DID have a Silence shockwave when landing and we had it in playtests for a while. The problem was that it made it feel like you HAD to hit an enemy with it to be successful, and anything else was kind of a waste. And by encouraging people to land directly on enemies, it often forced them into bad positions where they'd just get killed.
We wanted the Shadow Pounce to be used more creatively, and give the play more agency rather than prescribing a pattern that would likely get them killed, so we backed away from the Silence and stuck with the more pure form of the movement. The intent of the ability became much more clear, and players were free to use it to dive, reposition or reach walls to climb which was much more successful overall.
Will you be giving his Tactical some more buff, including but not limited to [the] ability to cancel mid jump?
At the moment, his Tactical is feeling strong and the commitment to the leap adds a measure of counterplay to its power by making it more predictable. We're not looking to add a mid-leap cancellation at this time.
ULTIMATE
Can you change it to be around 50 HP instead? And as a compensation increase the duration from 25 sec to 30 sec? Do you think you could change it to just speed up the recharge instead of an instant recharge?
Lots of good potential suggestions to adjust and reign in Revenant's Ult here. I particularly agree with note of how gracious the assist window is on the Ult recharge, so that might be something to look into. We'll be reviewing Rev across the season, so we may well see adjustments to the Ult in the near future.
Even though he has a refrigerator hit box, his Ult feels so unfair to go against at times. A good Rev (luckily there are also enough bad ones) is just unbeatable [right now]. Are you planning to adjust the extra shield he gets in his Ult?
Rev intentionally came out strong and his Ultimate is a big part of that. We've felt that internally as well. No promises, yet. But I will say that I wouldn't be surprised to see some dials turned in the future for this ability.
How did the Ult make it through play testing without realizing how busted it is to regenerate your shield instantly with an added 10 seconds. Why is there a random scan ability?
Playtesting showed how powerful the Ult could be and there were certainly concerns. The Ult gives Rev the confidence to stay in the fight, push a little harder and secure the kill - which was the play pattern we were striving for with this rework. Given this, we opted to allow Revenant his time in the sun to see what aspects were the most potent. As we analyze what parts of the kit might be too oppressive, we can then make targeted changes to reign in that power on the right axis. We don't get to see that if he releases too weak and no one plays him.
The momentary targeting scan isn't random, it's intentional. It allows him to hone in on weak targets and know when to dive on them to secure the kill. As a Revenant, you now have a call to action when enemies get low to use your Shadow Pounce or move in with Forged Shadows to pursue that advantage. It's a core part of his new play pattern, and fits the killer assassin character well from our perspective.
Nerfing his Ult HP would be a huge issue despite what people are saying.
The Ult HP is a tricky thing to play with. Too low, he feels like paper, too high it feels invulnerable. We have a lot of parameters surrounding Forged Shadows in addition to HP that we can play with and reign in the Ult's power if it gets out of hand. This is good feedback to hear though!
What do you think about increasing his Ult cooldown by like 30 seconds? Right now he’s able to comfortably have it every single fight and it’s probably the most annoying thing to fight in a 1v1 scenario.
This is a good suggestion, I could see us adding time to the Ult here. We'll be looking over Rev's kit and its balance state over the course of the season. I think it's very possible we'll see tweaks to Revenant's Ultimate in the future.
What is the data on how strong Rev’s Ult is cause I cannot tell if it’s too strong or too weak.
The season's still young, and we're gathering data at the moment from feedback, and the community on large at the moment. In the early days, actual telemetry is often skewed because everyone’s playing the character, but as the season goes one we'll be able to see how the power of his Ult is shaking out and make any adjustments needed.
Why was an overshield added while also giving him movement? We pretty much have a mobile Gibby here. Also why give him even more Passives on top of his wall climbing and silent crouch?
We wanted Revenant to feel confident diving in to secure a kill as his core play pattern: the Passive lets him know when enemies are low to push, the Tactical lets him close the gap, the Ultimate gives him the confidence to dive in and secure it.
So the overshield was added to allow him to push into an enemy team, the idea being that the large hitbox of the shroud is very easy to hit and burn through, offering a measure of counterplay if Revenant over-extends. It's definitely dialed high, and we'll monitor its power across the season to see if adjustments need to be made.
Revenant is admittedly a little overloaded with Passives - but they all serve a purpose in his overall kit and synergize with the other abilities well. Also, we didn't want to lose the unique crawling and wall climbing that was so core to the character in this change.
BALANCE
Also no bleed-through. If you get hit with a Kraber for example you only take damage from the Ult shield. Have a shield with 1 hp? You only take 1 hp damage.
Bleed-through you say...? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Did the Rev animation cancel get patched and if so why? Context: every time I touch the ledge for super glide, the q activates.
The Super-Glide + Shadow Pounce combo was never intentional behavior, nor were the exploits that let you draw your weapon early. As far as we know, the mantle bug (where the pounce auto-triggers from mantle) is a bug - but it's likely we'll see actual fixes for the anim-cancel exploit and super-glide shadow pounce in the near future.
Do you have plans to rework other characters whether it's their entire kit similar to how you did with Revenant in the future?
None at present. Revenant was an opportunity - a clash of low pick rates, and a mismatched play experience and fantasy. We're open to the possibility of returning to previous Legends, but like Rev, the opportunity would need to exist to go after as fully.
Do you plan to do reworks to only a certain part of a legends kit such as making new Passives for certain legends that are considered "outdated" in today's game?
We'd like to address more "outdated" aspects of early kits if they need it. We have a balancing act between desired meta adjustments, bugs and new seasonal content that already occupy a lot of our resources so it's a difficult thing to prioritize - especially on Legends who are still "doing well". But I'd like to revisit some in the future - there's just nothing in play at the moment.
Has there been any deeper look into quality of life changes for Mirage? Also, if the decoys could mirror Mirage’s movements more?
These are all excellent suggestions. Tackling Mirage's decoy issues and QoL updates is something that has been on the docket for a while, but has been lower priority than other upcoming season work or bug fixes. The team wants to start tackling these. Hopefully that time will come soon.
If characters like Revenant, Vantage, Pathfinder and Wraith can't use their Q and shoot/heal how come Horizon can with her whole team?
The short answer is the game's definition of "using" the Tactical is different from what you're describing. While activating her Tactical, Horizon can't "shoot" either. The arm winds-up the animation and she throws her device. She's done using the Tactical at that point. It has been deployed.
A character like Revenant can't shoot while he's actively still "leaping" - because he's still using the ability and in the animation. There are a few Legends who can (Bangalore for example) and we like to monitor what abilities are allowed to be used without stowing the weapon.
What I believe you're referring to is riding the lift once the ability is deployed however, and we look at what the player can do when interacting with an ability on its own merit. We do the same for riding ziplines or taking jump pads too. Yes, they are Ultimates - but they are deployed abilities in the world and we consider their utility differently than how we control the weapon during the release animation of the ability.
In this case, if we limited your ability to heal, use weapons, throw grenades/abilities...the lift would feel pretty one dimensional. Allowing the player to use weapons/meds or abilities, gives agency and play potential not just to Horizon, but anyone who uses the lift - making it a dynamic element on the field. We realize Horizon can be squirrelly in her lift, but don't want to cut all the fun play potential from her ability wholesale. So while we're currently looking at options to make Horizon's lift more fair and balanced, we likely won't be taking that particular balance route anytime soon.
I saw in an article you guys originally intended for there to be a Passive that allowed Revenant wallrunning abilities, but it was scrapped because you guys thought there wasn't much opportunity for it in the maps. Does this mean no future character will ever have wallrunning?
No. It doesn't take it off the table, but it does make it difficult to justify. We prototyped a number of variations of wall running but the most enjoyable version included double-jumping. With double-jump it had organic utility, small obstacles became quick "tricking" launch points - but you weren't really "wall running" as much as simply tagging walls to chain jumps and it was clearly a mobility nightmare to deal with for any other player. The versions we tried without the double-jump were very situational successful.
They were shells of what you wanted from a "wall-running" ability and the viable use cases were very small given the map design of Apex. It's just not as well suited for the world as it was for the Titanfall maps.
So is it entirely off the table? No. With the right kit there might be a way to introduce it into the game in the future. But for now, it is difficult to see it suddenly becoming viable on another character if it didn't really work with Rev.
Not specifically about Revenant but about the silence ability. Who in their right minds thought that it would be fair to give that ability to Seer in his Tactical and not Crypto in his Ultimate?
Seer already had a Silence as part of his Tactical, it just lasted a very short amount of time compared to the scan. We flipped this for Seer in an effort to pull down the scan meta overall and push him towards initiation rather than closing. The silence works well with Seer's kit, as you can track and target with his Passive to and gain knowledge through the brief scan of WHO has been silenced in order to make choices on how to push based on the abilities that have been locked out.
Crypto's EMP also silencing is an interesting direction to consider - though, as with Rev's old version, it would be difficult to tell if the silence had real impact. The EMP already does significant shield damage in addition to its slow and disorientation in a large area through walls - you would still use it for that over the silence component, it'd be icing on the cake for few who'd take notice - and infinitely more frustrating for those caught it the giant emp area. And to be fair, Crypto's emp isn't what's holding him back. It is good feedback to consider for any future Crypto updates though!
Revenant - don't you think that 75 shields from the Ult (which refreshes on knocks/kills) is a little bit too much? A red shield Revenant with an Ultimate is exactly 300 HP, which is absolutely insane. Horizon Q - any plans to at least remove the healing/shielding?
Revenant - This is great feedback. It's possible and definitely very strong! We're definitely looking at this and his overall performance. But we have lots of ways to reign in his power in a future patch if it gets out of hand!
Horizon - Her Gravity Lift's power is known, and we're looking at what we can do for Horizon in the future.
The rework is amazing to say the least; but what does this mean for future legends? Are there any changes for existing season 1/2 legends coming or not?
There are currently no other plans for significant Legend reworks in the near future.
We're not opposed to the idea of reworking other Legends, but like Revenant, it would require the right opportunity and the right gameplay change that fits their character and fantasy to justify the rework.
Why can a Horizon Ult break a Catalyst reinforced door?
It was a gameplay design decision for Horizon's black hole to tear off normal doors. When Catalyst was introduced, we evaluated this interaction and decided for consistency and expectation if Horizon's Ult "broke doors" you would expect it to continue that behavior and we valued that consistency over the niche counter option.
COSMETICS
I was hoping that you would give the shadow teammate revive animation from shadow royal to Revenant, it would give more character to him and would allow people to appreciate the skin they have equipped. Is it a difficult process to do?
This is a pretty cool idea. Definitely something to consider and ensure fits within the lore of the non-Shadow Royale world to be right for Apex!
Will Revenant get new skins based off of his new model, such as grey to purple tier skins, or will those stay for his old model?
All new skins will be based on Revenant's new model. The current skins he has from his old model will remain unchanged - so if you like the old look or one of its variants, they will still be there. Whether we add in additional skins like those found in the common and rare tiers for the new model is TBD, but I'm not aware of any plans to do so yet.
Will there be any new skins based off his new model added to his already pre existing Legendary old skin models?
The plan is for any new skins to be based off his new model. You'll be able to use these alongside any old skins you've already unlocked. Whether any are coming out in the next update or a future one I don't actually know.
LORE
Did you ever consider having Revenant and Bloodhound interact re: their shared hatred of Hammond? It almost seemed like we were going to get a team-up with the two of them vs Hammond back in Season 10, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. Either way, their mutual devastation at Hammond’s hands is a really strong connection between them and I’d be interested to see how they’d interact.
I can't comment on future storylines because... well, what would be the fun in that? But you're very observant to have made that connection.
How was Revenant's life before he realized he was a Simulacrum? How was it for others who knew him?
I assume you mean when he was already a simulacrum, but didn't know he was a simulacrum? Revenant simply thought he was living his normal life as an assassin prior to the realization that he was a simulacrum, so he didn't have a problem with that. The only people who would've known Revenant during that time are those who were in control of him, and their lives were pretty good when they had a very obedient robot assassin at their fingertips.
I know we got a little snippet of [Kaleb Cross] from one of the loading screens in the battle pass this season where he was painting and then killed whoever was making him paint. Was his father making him do it and telling him that he doesn't have an artist's eye and that art is about control? Or was that someone else entirely?
There is a canon explanation behind the loading screen, but I'll leave that up to your interpretation.
I was wondering if Revenant is actually talking to his doubles or is he hallucinating? Another one is that it seems every time we think Revenant has hit his lowest point he manages to get worse. Is this his true rock bottom or is there no rest for him lol?
For your first question, we're getting a glimpse into Revenant's mind. Things have been happening to him that are out of his control and so we're seeing his haunting thoughts around that.
For your second question--well, I won't spoil the story for you, but Kill Code isn't over yet. There's still more of Revenant's story to come.
I've really enjoyed the way you've been telling the ongoing story of Apex Legends, whether it's through in-game easter eggs, dialogue updates between legends, the door, the rabbit at Estates, the Kill Code LTM story mission, story trailers, etc. However, for people who take a break from the game or are new who come in later seasons, they miss out on the narrative entirely.
As a team, we're constantly discussing ways to make the lore and narrative of previous seasons more accessible to players, both in-game and out. This is something we're continuing to work on. For now, those who are hoping to catch up on narrative events can check out our online Lore Hub.
Is Revenant trying to figure out what is happening with him on his own besides waiting for answers from Crypto and others?
Revenant is gathering intel based on what he knows--namely, that the Kill Code crew know more around what's happening to him than he does. You'll see more about the next steps he takes as the Kill Code series continues.
Is there a chance that Revenant will find peace and Loba finally let him die, or she could die?
There's a chance for a lot of things to happen if it hasn't happened yet! But what WILL happen is the story we wrote.
Is there an official lore timeline that can be read/watched? Would be really cool to be able to get the up to date, full story.
The best place to go to catch up on all the big story pieces would be the online Lore Hub.
It was really cool to see Revenant actually go to another Legend for help at the end [of Kill Code] (even if he was a little rude about it!) and I’m so hyped to see where that goes. Are there any plans to develop his relationships with any of the other Legends beyond just antagonism?
Glad you're enjoying Kill Code! The relationships between all our Legends are always evolving and changing with the story, Revenant's included. I can't tell you what the future holds, but I certainly wouldn't discount the possibility.
Rev has a line to Lifeline, I think, mentioning her knowing more about his new body. Does that mean he has no clues as to who has been tampering/upgrading him?
I won't spoil anything, but he did find Crypto at the end of Kill Code Part 2. He's got an inkling that the Kill Code crew know more around what's happening to him. Does he have a clue about who's doing this to him? Hm…
So about the rare dialogue with Rev in the lobby. Is it Rev talking to himself through the old bodies or is it an outside force talking through them? Also could Rev theoretically go back to an old body if his head gets destroyed by someone?
For your first question, I've answered a similar one here. Revenant's head contains his source code, which is essentially his brain. It's what makes Revenant the "person" he is and keeps him alive. If the head is destroyed, Revenant will die.
The description said that Revenant’s mind has been shattered and I hoped we would get some really crazy unhinged voice lines from him. Is there any chance that you are working on some cool new voice lines for him?
You can get a glimpse into Revenant's mind if you have him selected in the lobby right now. I won't specify exactly what, but we have more in store for Revenant as the Kill Code series continues.
What is the reason for the totem not working in the lore? Is it gonna be a future ability?
The totem wasn't working because Revenant was being transferred into a new shell with different abilities. Whether it will be a future ability, Devan's answered that here.
What was the conversation like between Revenant and Crypto after Rev finally stopped choking him? Does Rev still respawn into other bodies if he is destroyed or is the body he's in now one of a kind?
The answer to your first question would be a spoiler! Revenant still has multiple bodies that his consciousness moves into when the one he's inhabiting is destroyed. They just happen to be redesigned.
Will Revenant and Ash get any new interactions soon? Was a little surprised when they didn't, especially since Ash showed some concern over his programming.
Revenant and Ash will interact in the future.
Will you give more background info or lore about the original human side of Kaleb Cross? I want to see his human form in a cutscene at least.
Kaleb Cross is certainly an important part of Revenant's history. If the opportunity arises for us to dive deeper into his life as a human, that's something we'll definitely explore. Right now? There's a loading screen this season that might intrigue you…
PROCESS
A popular request among Revenant mains was the ability to hold onto walls, which would have let him drop onto enemies unexpectedly. Was this ability considered during development? If so, what were its flaws?
We actually prototyped something along these lines at one point. It created a play pattern that was not really healthy for Apex. Players don't expect players to be stuck to the wall/ceiling and it just makes everything feel uncomfortable to play or move into buildings. Overall, it was unneeded pressure and concern, for mainly unfair ambushes - which were fun for the player on the wall... but in a pretty degenerate way. We didn't pursue it, and with Revenant, keeping him moving always felt more fun and fluid.
How did you come to the number of 75 for the Forged Shadows overshield, and do you have any preliminary data suggesting that it needs to be tuned (or that it seems fine)?
We felt like 75 struck a good balance between offering Revenant a good amount of protection while not feeling like it was impossible to break through, especially given the larger hitbox the ultimate provides. So far we're seeing that the ultimate is doing a good job at giving Revenant the upper hand in a 1v1 fight, but isnt going to save him if he tries to use it to attack a coordinated duo or a full 3-stack. We'll be continuing to monitor it though and will make adjustments to the ability to make sure it doesn't get too overbearing as people get more familiar with the kit.
In terms of development and implementation, is Revenant’s new Ultimate a repurposed/modified Gibraltar arm shield and hitbox? Or did the team have to work from scratch to code it?
Early on in the prototyping phase we wanted the shadows to be something of an aura around him that provided him his protection, but it was hard to read the extents of his protection. So we actually just stuck a miniature version of Gibby's dome shield on Revenant's head and it worked so well it stuck. Then when one of our VFX artists showed us a mock up of what it could look like as a pair of demon wings surrounding him, we were sold!
Miss the old kit, this could be the abilities of a new legend, why opt for a complete rework? Ult shield should not [regenerate] and it should count as damage to opponents.
We opted for it for a number of reasons:
- Wasn't fulfilling the Revenant Fantasy
- Niche playstyle
- Required team coordination and other Legends to be successful
- Overall low pick/success rate
So instead of a new Legend that would have to work into an overall crowded roster, there was a good opportunity here for us to breathe new life into an underperforming Legend and retool him to better service the overall fantasy of his character.
We're aware of the shroud not counting towards damage and are looking into a solution which should be coming in a patch soon.
Was the leaked WIP Ultimate (where you would teleport someone and yourself into a 1v1 arena) really tried at some point internally?
I am not sure what leak you're referring to. But Evan Funnell, the Designer on Revenant, spoke about some of our early prototype attempts in an interview recently.
A 1v1 duel in the Shadow Realm was actually something we tried, but as he said, it never really gave Revenant the right advantage for being his Ultimate. And was actually used in more degenerate ways than you'd expect - to escape a third party, to evade damage and leave your teammates defenseless, to single out someone already low on health so they had no chance of support from their allies. It was pretty clear that taking players out of the game for a showdown wasn't something we wanted in Apex for a number of reasons.
What made you guys come to the idea of not letting players take out their weapons before we hit the ground?
It never feels great on the receiving end to have someone flying towards you out of nowhere and for them to land a bunch of shots on you before you even have time to react or know what's happening. Revenant has a lot of freedom to move however he wants with his pounce, so we felt it was important for there to be some limitations given to him while he's midair to give some time for enemies to see or hear him coming and be able to turn and react. We want him to be a gap closer to take a fight that he knows he can win, but not to be a silent assassin that hits you before you even knew he was there.
What [was] the decision making process for what parts of his kit to remove and which parts to keep. Also I know it's a long shot, but I'd love to see the old shadow effect come back for the Ult.
The decision came from a desire to push him towards a play pattern that better suited his fantasy. We wanted him to feel like he does in the trailers. An unstoppable, monstrous force who closes distances fast, gets in your face and secures the kills.
A lot of what we noticed from the patterns of his Tactical and Ultimate were that you instinctively played them "safe." Poking from behind cover, lobbing Tacticals, or hiding a totem before making a free push. This kit is all about aggression, knowing when to dive in - having the tools to do so with confidence and be rewarded for securing the kill.
The Silence was definitely core to his old pattern - but it was hard for Revenant to get value from it. You had to see who you were hitting with it to be able to make plays off the silenced abilities and often it was primarily used purely for zone denial. This new direction pushes Revenant into the frontlines more frequently and makes him more frightening to square off against.
What was the inspiration/thought process for Revenant Reborn's final kit? How do you (the team) feel about the change?
Yea, there were a ton of iterations on his abilities leading up to the final kit. Our goal with Revenant was always to bring him more in line with his original character fantasy, and so we tried a lot of ideas to make him more aggressive and to make him feel like he was always coming after you like the terrifying robot assassin he is. Some of those ideas were cool, but lacked some solid counterplay or had their own bad play patterns and feels bad moments on either Revenant's side or on the side of players fighting Revenant, so we moved away from those ideas. The pounce specifically came about because we wanted an ability to help close the gap between Revenant and his prey quickly, and pouncing on them like a big cat felt pretty terrifying when he was coming straight at you and really gave that feel of him being the hunter tracking his prey.
Super excited! We're really happy to see people jumping in and having fun with him. We feel like he's definitely living up to original vision a lot more now and is a pretty terrifying force in the Apex games now!"
What was the moment you decided that Revenant was going to get a rework? And was it a case of reworking no matter the cost or did you go into the process with the option to scrap it all if you didn't exceed the original?
We first discussed the option shortly after season 13. Revenant hadn't been sitting well, and we'd recently made (or were about to make) changes to de-incentivize his more degenerate "rev-tane" pattern. We came up with some original goals for the type of play pattern we wanted him to go after and how it could fulfill his fantasy. We wrote a kit design and discussed how we could potentially use the rework as an opportunity to payoff on some of the Loba/Revenant lore we'd built up in previous seasons. But we didn't commit to a full rework until later once we'd tried and scrapped a few early prototypes and Narrative had a solid direction for the story. But in those early stages, we'd said that if we couldn't find something that hit the goals, we wouldn't push this rework through production…
We only finally truly committed to the rework towards the later part of the year, and while the kit was not the same as what we ended up with, the promise of the direction change was strong and we were able to start working with other departments to galvanize a season around his "rebirth."
When reworking Rev’s kit, was it difficult trying to adjust him from more of a team based legend (the totem and silence orbs) to a more lore accurate self-centered legend (the shadow shields and pounce)? And if possible, could we get some details about possible earlier builds of what his kit went through during his development before the team settled on what we currently have?
It was difficult. From a design perspective it did irk us that he would lose an ability that benefited his team. But it fit Revenant's character overall, and we felt it was worth the exploration. We've mentioned some of the early prototypes in other threads.
Silence shockwave on the pounce, wall running, the 1v1 Shadow Realm duel. We even tried a version where Revenant could self-revive himself at any time by destroying his current body (even when not downed) and emerging from his totem as a shadow to reposition. It was cool, and powerful, and on-brand - but every way we spun it, it just became a frustrating element to deal with after Revenant had been knocked, and pre-knock just always ended up feeling like a Wraith Tactical - so we scrapped it for something that would keep him more IN the fight, rather than something that would only help him if he already LOST the fight.
When reworking Revenant's kit, [were] there any plans to keep his silence in the kit, and if not was this the reason it was introduced to Seer?
There were. Early iterations had his Shadow Pounce erupt with an AOE Silence burst on landing. Unfortunately, this highly encouraged players to try to jump directly ON enemies - which was not always (not even often) a good idea and just got folks killed. And in players’ minds, if you didn't hit someone with the silence, you were "doing it wrong." Which made it feel like a bad move to flank, or leap to a wall with the pounce - which wasn't what we wanted. So we opted with the more "pure" movement-only version to allow more creativity and freedom to decide what the right way to use the pounce might be given the situation.
The Rework was actually NOT the reason for Seer's change. Seer's changes were aimed around toning back his full kit's reliance on wall-hacks and peeling back the "scan meta" overall. Seer has always had "silence" in his kit, but it was relegated to a short window on hit, and was coupled with his more problematic "heal interruptions." When inverting these, it made for a much more useful version of the silence - unlike Rev, it could be targeted, and you could see what Legends you hit to know what abilities were off the table and make plays off of them. That being said, the removal of Revenant's silence did make it a more comfortable change to have Seer take full ownership of that space, but they were both attacking unrelated goals during development.
Why did you…replace the uniqueness of Revenant's kit - most prominently the silence - and instead gave him just another mobility-driven Tactical?
There are two main reasons. The first, was that Revenant's old kit was not fulfilling the promise of his fantasy as much as we wanted. The second was that his gameplay both from his Tactical and Ultimate were either unreliable or would only be successful in very niche use cases.
Revenant would rarely be able to use his Passive to close distance effectively, and his core Tactical ability encouraged denying space from poke range more than aggressive play, silence was difficult to determine the outcome of and Rev required a lot of team coordination (with a movement friend ) to be able to make a Rev-push effectively. Overall he was not the nightmare assassin we saw in the trailers. With the new change, Revenant is much more self-sufficient, and from our perspective delivers more clearly on the promise of his character. If you see a Revenant bearing down on you now, it's scary.
Revenant wasn't given movement for popularity, he was given movement to encourage a desired play pattern and to synergize with his kit overall. If you are the Revenant looking for the kill - and see someone get low - you have the tools to dive in quickly and secure it.
SKIRMISHER
Any thoughts on moving him back to assault?
Revenant's new play pattern focuses around Combat Mobility and hit-and-run styles of play, which firmly places him in the Skirmisher class by definition. There are no plans to move him back to Assault.
Can you talk a bit about why you decided to move Revenant from the Assault Class to Skirmisher?
The Assault Class is about Combat initiation & utility. The Skirmisher Class is about Combat mobility & escape.
Characters whose abilities force enemies to make choices or open up advantages for their team to press on or initiate from fall into the assault class. Generally this means if a character lobs something at an enemy to disrupt them or their positioning ( think Fuse, Maggie, Ash ) as their core pattern they belong to this group. Skirmishers however have mobility at their core and are hit-and-run style Legends. Revenant's previous kit, focused on lobbing his shadow orb at enemy positions to disrupt them, while his new kit primarily focuses on mobility - allowing him to dive in to finish a kill or leap to reposition. Given his new play pattern, we felt this better aligned with the Skirmisher class.
I understand moving Revenant off of Assault because of the ability changes, but do you feel like Skirmisher was the right choice? He’s the only Skirmisher who doesn’t have a movement ability for the team.
Skirmishers are defined as Legends with high mobility or escape tactics. They are "hit-and-run" characters whose core play pattern can get them in and out of fights quickly. While some have team mobility, it's their core pattern that pushes their class role. Horizon's core pattern is about the mobility from her Gravity Lift (even though she has a more Assault-style Ultimate for example). Revenant follows the same idea, as his core revolves around his Shadow Pounce - and thus is a hit-and-run "Skirmisher" Legend.
Vantage has movement with Echo, but her core pattern revolves around taking high ground angles to make use of her ranged weapons and scopes more than diving in and out of fights. Loba has a great escape with her bracelet, but arguably her core pattern revolves around her Ultimate and securing loot for the next fight. Ash has her Ult, but it's an infrequent play - and like most assaults, her core revolves around throwing out her Tactical to force enemies to react and take advantage from there. Newcastle has movement in every ability - but plays much more supportive and defensive at his core.
The gameplay they primarily encourage is often how we justify the class role. Not everyone fits neatly, and some cross into other domains with their abilities - but we believe, at their core, most Legends are in the right place. Revenant included.
It seems the main reason for this is he definitely doesn't fall under ANY other current class with his style or kit. Has the team put any consideration into creating a 6th class type, perhaps an assassin class?
I've seen this a lot today. The Skirmisher class is not defined by "Team Mobility." It is defined by the Legend's core play pattern being focused around mobility or escape tactics, often for themselves primarily.
- Horizon -> plays off her Gravity Lift constantly
- Wraith -> phases to escape trouble
- Octane -> stims and runs around like a silly goose
While many of these Legends also have team utility for repositioning, it's more of a coincidence
So with Revenant's change, he plays off his Shadow Pounce and Wall Climbing a lot more, getting in and out of fights and so belongs in the Skirmisher Class.
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