Apex Legends Emergence gets a trailer and teases map updates

Apex Legends Emergence will kick off a new season of content on August 3. 

Respawn released a new trailer for the upcoming season at today's EA Play Live showcase. New Legend Seer is the star of Emergence and latest new trailer – and seemingly the dedicated gameplay trailer coming July 26 as well – and game director Chad Grenier also shared more on the Legends' kit. 

"Similar to Bloodhound, Seer is all about tracking enemies, but in a different way," Grenier explained. "He has a very unique kit. While you're aiming down sights, you'll have a heartbeat sensor that'll give you hints as to where an enemy might be. If you think you've located them, you can use your [Tactical ability] which sends out those drones out of your chest and will actually reveal and track the enemy's location. The ultimate is really powerful, especially in certain gameplay situations. You can send out hundreds of microdrones and create a sphere around an enemy that you choose."

Seer was described as a more "stealth-oriented" hero who collects "precise and lingering information." He also enables stealth play in a way. The tracking sphere created by his ultimate won't detect you if you move slowly through it, which ought to create some interesting counterplay for close-quarters shootouts. 

The Emergence reveal page is chock-full of details on other additions coming in August. Expect a new battle pass with limited-time skins and challenges, as well as a special Emergence Pack that gets you a Seer skin and 600 Apex Coins (which will become available August 12). 

Importantly, the World's Edge map is apparently due for some sort of update, but Respawn's only saying it's "on the brink of some major changes" for now. Emergence will also introduce a ranked system for the newly released Arena mode. Grenier teased that Arenas will use "a bit of a different ranked system than we have in the battle royale mode" but didn't go into too much detail. Still, it's nice to see Respawn giving the mode its own competitive ladder so soon after its initial release. 

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Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.