[2023] [AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Revenant Reborn!

Do Simulacrum dream of robot sheep that think they are normal sheep?

All hail smoked gouda

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 it's power across the season to see if adjustments needs 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.

He's actually more inspired by venomous snakes and spiders.
The spider was part of his inspiration from the beginning with his climb, and the snakes took shape with the redesign of his new hood from what our Lead Concept Artist has mentioned

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.

Revenant's Shadow Pounce is intended to be loud and aggressive given it's 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.

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 how 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.

Bleed-through you say...?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

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 gains 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 though for any future Crypto updates though!

This is a bug. We are looking to fix it.

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

1) 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.
2) 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.
3) 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.

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.

Booking an Apex dentist ...in THIS economy!?

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.

The mantle bug is unintentional and will be fixed.

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.

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

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 to that get around this intended design.

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!

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 everyway 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

Hammond never sprung for the premium coverage.

Responded to something similar here: Rev's new look

With regards to the deployed abilities - I wasn't suggesting you could shoot or heal from a zipline, merely that we evaluate them on their own ( the jump pad has different rule sets than the zipline )

That being said, we're totally aware of the frustrations around Horizon. She's often a hot topic in our balance meetings, and as stated in this and other posts we are looking at options - but, at this time, removing item/ability/weapon usage is not how we'd like to address it for now.

It's a bug. Not intentional

Yeah, that's the pain point we're feeling too - it's a really good callout. Hopefully we can make that a little better soon!

Bug.