Meltdown is officially underway! Apex Legends Season 3 started October 1st and brought even more changes than we covered in the last article. We’re going to cover the new Apex Legends Battle Pass and the best rewards you can get from it, Crypto’s released abilities, all the removed and added gun bits and bobs, as well as the new weapon. 

Battle Pass Perks

The Battle Pass will cost 950AC. Buying this, you’ll unlock a multitude of rewards as you level your Battle Pass. The Battle Pass Bundle will cost 2800AC and grant you an immediate 25 battle pass level boot, unlocking all the loot from BP level 1-25. Let’s highlight some of the best rewards you’re going to unlock from the Battle Pass.

Skins, skins, and more skins for six of your favorite Legends and tons of your beloved weapons. Legend skins that we’re hyped for are Lifeline’s Legendary ‘From The Ashes’ skin at BP level 53 and Caustic’s skin at BP level 37 that everyone will get, regardless of whether they bought the battle pass or not. If you buy the BP, you’ll instantly unlock skins for Octane, Mirage, and Bloodhound where the BP Bundle buyers will also instantly gain access to Pathfinder’s skin.

As you level up your BP, you’ll unlock 21 new weapon skins. Max your BP out and get 3 Legendary skins, two Adaptive Legendary Peacekeeper skins as well as a Legendary Longbow skin that you’ll unlock when you buy the BP. Our personal favorites are the ‘Polar Bear’ EVA-8 Auto skin and the ‘Lightshow’ Triple Take skin that you unlock at BP levels 86 and 94 respectively.

Respawn has really upped the ante when it comes to the drop in emotes. Last season brought us the introduction of drop emotes, but they were rather simple. Lifeline did a flip and threw up a peace sign, for example. This season we get drop emotes for Pathfinder, Mirage, Lifeline, Gibraltar, and Watson. Pathfinder flies like a bird before getting mauled by Artur.

Mirage rides down on the back of one of his clones pony style. Gibraltar hangs ten on his shield in a nod to his island background. Watson pops the tesla off her back and uses it as a helicopter on the way down. Lifeline does some sick aerial breakdancing and caps it off with a nice twirl. These drop-in emotes have so much more character than last seasons’ and we’re loving it. Let us know which emote is your favorite!

A completely new cosmetic coming to Apex Legend is weapon charms. These little guys will get clipped on the side of your gun for a little personal flair as you mow down squads. There are currently five charms to collect as you level your BP, but we have to admit that we’re partial to Nessy that you unlock at level 99.

As we return from last season we’re greeted with more breathtaking loading screens. We see shots highlighting parts of the map, which is something we didn’t get last season. If you’re not cashing out for the Battle Pass, you can still get Mirage’s little room of self-adoration. And honestly, we stan a self-love king.

Check out all the loading screens below and let us know which one you’ll be rocking. If you’re indecisive like us and love all of these beautiful scenes, Respawn just added a random load-in selection so you’ll get to see a variety of these amazingly illustrated screens.

Crypto’s Abilities

Crypto is all about staying in the fight while staying out of the line of fire. With Crypto’s tactical ability, he deploys his drone and flies it around the map in a very large radius for up to 3 minutes. Making sure that you’re in a safe spot, protected by your squadmates or having them draw fire for you is crucial when looking to use this ability.

His ultimate charges up a huge EMP from his drone. This EMP deals damage to shields, slows enemy players and destroys all traps in range. Even when Crypto isn’t tapped directly into his drone, he and his teammates can see what it sees for a 30-meter radius which makes him great at detecting flanking squads.

What’s New and What’s Gone?

While Meltdown ushered in tons of new cosmetics and a new Battle Pass, it also brought a change in what you’ll be finding out on the battlefield when it comes to loot. No longer in the game are:

• Disruptor Rounds

  • Attaches to:Alternator SMG andRE-45 Auto

  • Rarity: Level 3 (purple)

  • Increases damage to shielded targets

  • Skullpiercer Rifling

    • Attaches to: Longbow DMRand Wingman

    • Rarity: Level 4 (gold)

    • Skullpiercer Rifling will increase the headshot multiplier of its current weapon.

These hop-ups have been removed to make room for two new hop-ups and they may come back in later seasons. Respawn feels like they’ve found a good number of hop-ups to exist in the game at one time, enough for variety but not so many that it’s impossible to find the one you need. The new hop-ups are:

• Anvil Receiver

  • Attaches to: Flatline and R-301.

  • Rarity: level 4 (gold).

  • This hop-up empowers semi-auto mode; it offers highly increased damage but at the cost of a reduced rate of fire and double ammo per shot.

  • Double Tap Trigger

    • Attaches to: G7 Scout and EVA-8 Auto.

    • Rarity: level 3 (purple).

    • This hop-up makes each trigger pull fire a quick two-round burst.

You’ll also find a new weapon on the battlefield this season in the Charge Rifle. This energy rifle/sniper takes a second to warm up and will do minor damage to players if you keep a bead on them before delivering a monstrous blow to whoever is on the receiving end of it. The Charge Rifle exists in the main loot pool, meaning that you’ll find it on the ground when you drop in. It’s Apex Legend’s only hit-scan weapon, meaning that the laser hits your target the second you pull the trigger. This makes the Charge Rifle a monster when it comes to third-party fighting as you just have to pop a good 4x scope on it and snipe from half the map away.

Several other notable changes took place with level 4 (gold) armor. The old passive on level 4 armor was “Executioner: Finishers refresh your armor”, which now applies to all Legends regardless of armor level. The new passive for golden armor is “Fast Use: Consumable items take half as long to use”.

This means that healing, armoring up, and using Ultimate Accelerates will take half the time they normally do. The “Fast Use'“ passive was previously on the golden backpack which has a new passive, “Guardian Angel: Revive downed teammates with bonus health and shields (if they have armor)”.

There are even more minor changes to Legends and specific weapons that can be found in the official Apex Legends patch notes in the Origin client. What do you think about the new season and the Battle Pass rewards? What’s your favorite skin for this season? What charms will you be rocking on your weapons? Let us know down below or on Twitter @GeNeLMag and follow us on Facebook for more Apex Legends news.