Cipher Patch Notes

ICYMI: Designers Notes


CIPHER OVERVIEW

Apex Legends: Cipher is here! It’s bringing new features, new weapon combos, and big changes to Ranked alongside the usual slew of bug fixes and balancing passes. Read on for info about the Akimbo Wingman, Strongholds, new Ranked features and more! Season 31 begins on November 3rd, so get the squad together and get ready to jump into Apex Legends: Cipher!

RANKED LEGEND BANNING AND SCORING ADJUSTMENTS

We recently unveiled upcoming plans for new features, quality of life improvements, and adjustments coming to Ranked over the next two seasons. 

Starting in Cipher, we’re launching Legend Banning in Diamond+ matches, allowing you to vote for Legends to be banned from selection for each match. Scoring adjustments for wide-skill matches will also be live at season start and will adjust entry costs if your Rank is too far above or below the median lobby rank.

Read on for all of the details, or circle back to the Ranked Roadmap blog to see what’s still on the horizon.

AKIMBO WINGMAN

The Wingman’s firepower is being doubled. Akimbo Wingman joins the weapon roster as a formidable foe at close and mid-range, leaving Legends’ bodies in its wake. Find them in ground loot, or at Heavy Arsenals, and gear up to become the fastest gun-slinger in the Apex Games.

• Ammo type changed from Sniper Ammo to Heavy Ammo

  • Now takes Heavy Magazines instead of Sniper Magazines

  • Now spawns on Heavy Ammo Arsenals instead of Sniper Ammo Arsenals

• Base damage decreased from 50 to 45

• Loot a second Wingman to automatically enter Akimbo

• Akimbo Mode:

  • Decreases headshot multiplier to 1.25x

    • Headshot damage: 56

  • Slightly increases rate of fire

  • Increases reload time

  • Increases recoil

  • Magazine size is doubled

  • Firing the Akimbo Wingman will cause each gun to fire one after the other, in a quick burst

    • Holding down the trigger releases subsequent bursts

STRONGHOLDS

Now Dropping into the Apex Games: the Stronghold. In addition to our existing Care Packages and Replicators, these new Structures will airdrop onto the map near the mid game. 

Strongholds are locked, bunker-style structures that deploy dynamic cover and contain valuable loot. Players must occupy and control the zone surrounding the Stronghold to capture them. When captured, Strongholds will unlock, rewarding one level up to the capturing team. The loot contents of Strongholds will be a mix of rare loot, including Care Package weapons.

Stronghold Details:

• Updated Airdrop timing to accommodate Strongholds 

  • 2x Care Packages drop during Round 1 closing

  • 1x Care Package drop during Round 2 closing

  • 1x Stronghold drop during Round 2 closing

• Strongholds crush (and KILL) players and objects underneath them on landing

• Strongholds drop Dynamic cover upon landing

  • If there is enough space, Strongholds will deploy up to 4 indestructible barriers, and 2 Hardlight frames

• Strongholds cannot:

  • Be accessed or entered until captured

  • Be stolen from by Loba until captured

  • Be breached by Alter until captured

• Strongholds are Captured by controlling the Zone surrounding the structure

  • Capture Progress is made whenever there is only 1 team alive in the Capture Zone

  • Capture is Contested when more than one team is present in the Zone

  • Capture Progress is globally shared and cannot decay

  • Capture Progress is faster when multiple teammates are present

  • The capturing team is whichever team is in the Zone when Capture Progress reaches 100%

• When Captured,

  • The Stronghold’s doors and roof hatch will open

  • The Stronghold awards a Level Up to each living member of the capturing team

• Stronghold Loot Contents

  • 1x Care Package Weapon

  • 3x Gold Guns

  • 3x Amps

  • 2x Corrupted Attachments

For more information about the implementation of Akimbo Wingman and Strongholds, please read our most recent Designer’s Notes.

PATCH NOTES

LEGEND BUFFS

Crypto

Dev note: Crypto is a very difficult Legend to play but a lot of the time he’s camping in his drone instead of fighting with his team. With these improvements we’re looking to keep what makes Crypto unique and strong but encourage using the drone in a more aggressive style while equipping him to stay with his team.

Passive

• Ally.MoveTo( ) (Speed Boost towards Teammates) Upgrade has now been integrated into the base kit

• The speed boost has been slightly reduced

Tactical

• Crypto's drone now has a battery system instead of lasting for ever

• With the battery, the drone has a limited time of 25s to perform its actions before being recalled

• After recalling, the drone can be redeployed without waiting for a cooldown

• Recall time is 6s

• Increased handling and speed while in the drone

• Enemies within line of sight of the drone can be scanned and marked; the marking ability has a 4s cooldown

• Enemies get marked with an icon that will allow you to track enemies even if the drone is recalled or destroyed

  • You cannot re-apply the mark to an enemy that is already marked

  • Enemies are marked for 8s

• The base scan zone has been updated to 360 instead of just camera view, it also no longer scans lootbins and doors

• While in drone mode you can press the shoot button to manually fire the mark

• Sped up transition time when entering the drone

Ultimate

• While Piloting

  • Crypto can trigger the EMP similar to the previous version

  • The player can press the Ultimate button on PC and the Y button on Console

    • The Shoot button is now used for marking enemies

• Out of pilot mode

  • The EMP triggers on the drone that has been deployed

• Self Deploying Drone

  • As long as Crypto has an available drone that isn't destroyed and isn't out in the world he can deploy the drone and activate the EMP by triggering his Ultimate

  • The drone that is deployed for the Ultimate will trigger the EMP after a short delay

• If the EMP has line of sight to an enemy, it will deal full shield damage and a heavier slow; If the EMP does not have line of sight, it will deal 50 damage and a lighter slow

• Crypto will not damage himself with his own EMP

Upgrades

LVL 2 - Ally.MoveTo( ) (Speed Boost towards teammates) replaced by Got Eyes On You (Enemies remain marked for 4s longer)

LVL 3 - Hackathon (Speed up drone recharge rate) replaced by Charged Up (10s longer drone battery lifetime ) 

Lifeline

Dev note: Lifeline is a great healer and can offer some clutch revives but we are seeing her playrate drop off as you climb ranks. We wanted to bring back some nostalgia by utilizing Upgrades to contribute to a feeling of stronger end game build.

Passive

• D.O.C. now heals Lifeline while she is gliding

Tactical

• Reduced Tactical cooldown from 25s to 15s

Upgrades

• LVL 2 - BattPack (+1 battery slots) replaced by Enhanced Radio (moved from LVL3) (Increased assign distance)

• LVL 2 - Improved Flight provides better glide handling and increased duration

• LVL 3 - Enhanced Radio (moved to LVL2) (Increased assign distance) is replaced by Ultimate Cooldown (60 second ultimate cooldown reduction) 

LVL 3 - Tactical Cooldown (Reduce Tactical cooldown by 10 seconds) replaced by Revive Shield (D.O.C. deploys shield while reviving)

Revenant

Dev note: We wanted to give Revenant some more interesting choices with his Upgrades. So for this update we’ve added 3 new Upgrades and integrated the removed ones into his base kit. This will make him more enjoyable and powerful to play out of the gate.

Tactical

• Reduced Tactical cooldown from 20s to 15s

• Sped up Tactical charge time

Ultimate

• Reduced Ultimate cooldown from 180s to 150s

Upgrades

• LVL 2 - Ultimate Cooldown (Ultimate cooldown reduced by 30s) replaced by Ever Lasting (10s Ult extension time on knock)

• LVL 3 - Tactical Cooldown (Tactical cooldown reduced by 5s) replaced by Silence (Landing from a Tactical leap releases an AOE pulse that silences enemies) 

• LVL 3 - Agile Assassin (Tactical attack and charge time faster) replaced by No Escape (Tactical refreshes when an enemy is marked by Passive )

Loba

Dev note: Loba has been performing really well since her buffs and the changes to loot. We feel like the uptime on her abilities is a little high so we’re going to adjust her cooldowns.

Tactical

• Increased cooldown from 25s to 30s

Ultimate

• Increased cooldown from 120s to 150s

Axle (from Oct. 1st, 2026 hotfix)

Passive

• Sliding lateral control reduced by 50% (making it harder to maintain slide momentum while tightly cornering)

Tactical

• Sliding lateral control reduced by 25% for Nitro Gate users

• Increased aim assist is disabled for players under the effect of the Nitro Gate

• Reduced Nitro Gate initial push speed from 700 to 650

Ultimate

• If the Kickstart drone locks on immediately after being deployed, the resulting knock-up is significantly decreased

• Reduced max knock-up magnitude from 700 to 650

• Reduced max drone chase time from 10 to 8s (meaning it'll give-up on an active chase 2s sooner)

WEAPONS & ATTACHMENTS

WEAPONS

CARE PACKAGE ROTATION

• L-Star returns to the floor (details below)

• Akimbo Mozambique enters the Care Package (details below)

Dev Note: When weapons like the Prowler gained auto firing bursts, they lost their ability to queue their next shot in favor of just holding down the trigger. This made sequential bursts feel sluggish when tap firing the weapon. We have added the firing queue to auto firing burst weapons to improve the feel for players that prefer to tap fire the weapon instead of holding the trigger.

All Burst Fire Weapons

• The Prowler PDW, Hemlok Burst AR, Nemesis Burst AR and Akimbo Wingman now support tap fire queuing in auto fire bursts

Akimbo Mozambique [Care Package]

• Damage per pellet increased from 17 to 18 

• Decreased reload speed

• Tightened blast pattern

• Added Executioner Hop-Up

  • Heals 15 shields per second on Care Package Akimbo Mozambique

• Stockpile size: 80 (40 per gun)

  • Wildcard stockpile size: 110 (55 per gun) 

EVA-8 Auto

• Removed Double Tap Trigger

• Added Disruptor Rounds

Dev Note: The time has come, the Hemlok Breach AR has launched its final Breach Charge (for now) and the Hemlok Burst AR returns to the Apex games.

Hemlok Burst AR

• Elite variant removed from all gamemodes

• Removed Automatic & Breach Charge firing modes

• Removed integrated silencer

• Added back Burst & Single firing modes

  • Body Damage: 21

  • Headshot Damage: 29

• Holding down the trigger now releases subsequent bursts

L-STAR EMG [Floor Loot]

• Base damage decreased from 21 to 19

• Shots until overheat decreased from 28 to 22 

• Base stockpile size reduced from 168 to 88

• Stockpile clip recharge time decreased from 22s to 18s 

• Removed Redline Hop-Up 

Nemesis Burst AR

• Increased vertical recoil

Peacekeeper

• Increased rate of fire

• Shotgun bolts now improve both the Peacekeepers rechamber rate and rate of fire

Dev Note: We are nerfing the Prowler in a targeted way to affect its range. Currently the Prowler is out-competing nearly all other SMGs and ARs in a variety of contexts. Nerfing its recoil will mean the gun remains deadly at close range, but less reliable at distance, so it isn’t out-performing ARs at medium range.

Prowler Burst PDW

• Increased recoil

• Removed Selectfire Hop-Up

ATTACHMENTS

Rapid Sniper Stock [Corrupted]

• Reduced rate of fire multiplier from 1.2x to 1.1x on:

  • G7 Scout

  • Longbow DMR

  • Triple Take

LOCKED HOP-UPS

Double Tap Trigger

• Removed from: EVA-8 Auto

Disruptor Rounds

• Added to: EVA-8 Auto [375 points to unlock]

Selectfire Receiver

• Removed from: Prowler Burst PDW

MAPS

Dev note: In this patch, we’ve rolled out 99 targeted Quality of Life fixes across our map rotation with a heavy focus on elevating the competitive flow of Storm Point, Olympus and World’s Edge. Our level designers and environment artists have been hard at work smoothing out sticky collisions to keep movement fluid, patching up troublesome geo holes and permanently sealing off unintended rat spots to keep matches fair.

We also wanted to extend a huge thank you to the community. Your detailed bug reports and gameplay clips are incredibly helpful for tracking down these hidden terrain issues. Please keep those clips coming, they are vital in helping us target these fixes and keep our map designs as clean and competitive as possible.

Pubs Map Rotation

• Storm Point

• E-District Night

• Broken Moon

Ranked Map Rotation

• Storm Point

• E-District Night

• Broken Moon

Mixtape 

• 11/3/26 - 1/5/27

  • TDM: Thunderdome, Fragment, Skull Town

  • Control: Production Yard, Barometer, Thunderdome

  • Gun Run: Skull Town, Wattson Pylon, Monument

E-District Night Adjustments

• Balanced Silhouette Contrast: Reduced the extreme difference between direct and ambient light levels, lifting deep shadows to dramatically improve enemy player visibility in low-light zones

• Motivated Light Sources: Added a significant number of localized, practical light fixtures to ensure the map feels naturally illuminated by the environment itself

• Grounding & Shadows: Substantially increased the technical budget for shadow-casting lights, grounding characters and environment structures far more realistically

• Micro-Contrast & Mood: Reworked the color-correction pass to sharpen micro-contrast, maintaining the city's rich cyberpunk atmosphere without turning dark areas into blind spots

• Visual Noise Reduction: Streamlined building and advertisement panel colouration to clear up high-frequency visual noise, letting player silhouettes pop against the city backdrop

Global Rendering & Readability Updates

These engine-wide updates apply to all maps following our latest rendering upgrades:

• Environmental Illumination: Applied a comprehensive lighting and material pass to world geometry and signage, establishing unified visual standards across all maps

• Luminance Standardization: Standardized world lighting values to guarantee predictable character contrast and consistent material behavior across different environments

• Atmospheric Fog Overhaul: Re-architected our fog systems within active gameplay spaces to preserve critical sightlines while sharpening overall depth perception

• Auto-Exposure Adaptation: Fine-tuned global color grading and slowed down auto-exposure adaptation speeds, limiting drastic brightness shifts and reducing eye strain during high-intensity fights

• Performance Optimization: Rebalanced localized lighting grids to optimize GPU performance and improve target readability in high-frequency visual areas

WILDCARD

Dev Note: During the Ascended Hunt Event, we experimented with this change to Wild Card delivery and saw a massive increase in engagement and satisfaction with Wild Cards overall, so we decided to make the change permanently! As always, hop in-game, test it out and let us know your feelings on it!

• Wild Cards are now granted to players at the beginning of Rounds 1, 2, and 3 via a selection UI at the top of the player’s HUD

• Replicators have been removed from Wildcard

Map Rotation

• November 3rd, 2026 - November 9th, 2026

  • District Wildcard

  • Broken Moon Wildcard

• December 1st, 2026- January 5th, 2027

  • Olympus Wildcard

  • District Wildcard

  • Broken Moon Wildcard

RANKED

Legend Bans

This season introduces a new system that allows players to select Legends they would like to see banned at the start of each Diamond+ match.

The Legend banning system is designed to help disrupt dominant Legend meta match-over-match.

In the new match starting flow, each player may request one Legend to ban. When the request timer ends, all requests are collected and tallied. A Legend's chance of being banned equals its share of all requests. For example, if Wraith receives 80% of the lobby's requests, Wraith has an 80% chance of being banned on the first randomized selection. Currently, the system selects 2 Legends to ban.

If fewer than 4 unique Legends are requested, the system picks from the previous week's most played Legends and adds 1 request to each, bringing the total unique Legends that have a possibility to be banned to the minimum of 4.

Once all banned Legends have been chosen, all players will proceed to Legend selection, with the currently banned Legends unavailable for selection.

Scoring Adjustments for Wide Matches

Dev Note: We are continuing to experiment with ways to improve the matchmaking experience, and in the meantime we want to account for frustrating and unfair matches in the scoring system. We landed on this system of decreasing entry cost for disadvantaged teams AND increasing it for advantaged teams as it best reflects the differences in RP earned while also avoiding making the RP system inflationary.

We are adding new Ranked Match Types to account for times when your squad is unfairly matched. These should be uncommon, usually occurring when playing outside of peak hours, but when they occur your entry cost will be fairly adjusted.

• Challenger Match - discounts entry cost by 30% when your Squad Tier is 2+ tiers below the Lobby Tier.

• Goliath Match - increases entry cost by 50% when your Squad Tier is 2+ tiers above the Lobby Tier.

If you are in a Goliath or Challenger Match, you will be told on the Waiting for Players screen and when you exit the dropship.

Your Squad Tier is calculated from the average RP of each squadmate, though all premade squadmates’ RPs are treated as equal to the value of the highest squadmate’s RP within their premade group.

• For example, if you are in a two person premade and you have the highest RP at 5,000 RP, your premade teammate's RP will also be treated as 5,000 RP. A player who is not a part of your premade will have no RP adjustment. 

• If a teammate never connects, your Squad Tier is decreased by one full tier.

The match’s Lobby Tier is the median of all Squad Tiers.

Improved Ranked UI

Reworked the Ranked Waiting for Players screen.

• Added Squad Tier

• Added Lobby Tier

• Displays current Entry Cost

• Displays a small pip for your Squad’s exact position in the Match Distribution

• Now lists your entire team even before individual members connect

• Added Match Type information

Added a new “Ranked” tab in the inventory menu.

• Shows Ranked information about your squad and the match

• Highlights relevant RP goals - covering your entry cost and promoting to the next division

  • Includes replacing your lowest ladder score and exiting demotion protection, when relevant

• Displays RP scoring rules

• The inventory button still pulls up the “Inventory” tab

Additional Ranked Improvements:

Dev Note: This season, we did a general pass to improve clarity around all things Ranked. We want to increase the amount of information people have about their match experience and make it visible throughout their match, instead of only showing it at the start of the match (a.k.a. the phone phase) or requiring players to wait until the match has already completed.

• Added label in the lobby for your Matchmaking Tier, the rank at which we are attempting to matchmake you

• Added RP information to the Obituaries/Kill feed

  • Showing the amount of RP earned on each kill

  • Added a new message when a squad is fully eliminated, including how much Placement RP you gain

• Updated the in-game Net RP UI to be red if you have negative RP, white if you have positive RP

  • Added a minor animation and a light audio effect when you reach positive RP

Ranked Ladders (coming later this split)

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue where players could perform bunny hops during the Death Box respawn interaction, allowing movement behavior that is not intended while the respawn process is in progress

LEGEND BUG FIXES

• Fixed a bug where Mirage's decoys remain floating in place when deployed during skydiving 

• Crypto can no longer use Weapons in the Olympus Boxing Ring

• Caustic's Nox Gas Traps are now able to be placed in Somers University properly

• Fix where after Ballistic’s Tempest expires, the Sling weapon continued to benefit from the Locked Hop-Up even though the Hop-Up was inactive before Tempest was activated 

• Fixed a bug where Mad Maggie did not receive the speed boost effect from Corrupted Agile Stock

• Various minor Alter bug fixes

MAPS BUG FIXES

• Olympus: Fixed an issue at the center of Estates where players couldn't climb up the edges of the second floor building to reach the top level

• World’s Edge: Fixed an issue where a cargo bot’s flight path was clipping into the buildings at Sorting Factory

• Resolved over 35 rat/hiding spots across all maps 

• Resolved over 15 different instances of Alter’s abilities allowing players to clip out of bounds across all maps

ENGINE

• Cubemap textures are now streamable, which will lower GPU memory usage

• Disk usage improvements

  • The Season 30.0 and 31.0 patches are larger than usual because existing textures were recompressed

  • Compared with Season 29.0, disk usage was reduced by ~30 GB on most platforms and ~17 GB on Switch 2

  • Overall disk usage will be smaller after the patch is applied, and patch sizes should return to their normal range in future seasons

QUALITY OF LIFE

• World’s Edge: Added additional cover along the outside of the walls at War Camp

• World’s Edge: Added a gap in the railings at the bottom of Construction Stacks to prevent knocked players from being trapped on the first floor

• Adjusted the attenuation distance of the Respawn Dropship to better indicate your proximity to a respawning team

• The Weapon Playground now shows what the weapon will look like when equipped with a specific optic

• Street Fighter Deathbox is now equipped on certain Heirlooms

  • It was not working properly on Hadoken and Horizon’s Heirloom

• After respawning via the deathbox, the Weapon HUD now displays the proper amount of Ammo

• Fixed an issue where the Game mode switched from Wildcard to Ranked on its own

• Fixed Text to Speech on Xbox One

• Random Favorite Legend skin selection now randomizes as intended

• Heirlooms with bright visual effects can no longer be seen through Cloaking abilities

• Fix an issue where game crashed to desktop when Bluetooth audio device disconnected or is switched during a match

• Fixed an issue where Steam achievements didn’t unlock after winning matches as support or recon legends

• Fixed an issue preventing challenges page layout from being appropriately displayed on 21:9 ultrawide resolution

• Fixed an issue where zipline interaction prioritized the wrong zipline when multiple ziplines were within range