Do you remember that hidden Apex Legends Horizon nerf Respawn Entertainment snuck into the battle royale’s Spellbound update earlier this month? Well, to no one’s surprise, it started to tank Apex Legends’ Horizon pick rate; the popular character was returning to earth, if you will, after a dominant spell as one of the best legends available. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that Apex Legends’ Horizon pick rate is returning to some sort of normalcy after the sharp decline post-update. This rise in popularity isn’t because players are getting used to the changes made by Respawn Entertainment, though, but because the battle royale’s developer has actually reverted and removed them.
Yes, dearies, you’re reading that right. If you’re a Horizon main, you’ll be pleased to know that Respawn Entertainment has confirmed that it has reverted the changes affecting player accuracy while shooting from Horizon’s tactical ability: Gravity Lift.
The developer actually confirmed that it had “rolled out a fix” to correct the issue via the official Respawn Entertainment social media account on January 13. Adding to that, senior producer Josh Medina commented that “sometimes things escape that aren’t fully ready for prime time.. especially with ALGS coming up”.
As mentioned above, Respawn Entertainment’s removal of this seemingly unintentional change has resulted in an increase when it comes to Horizon’s pick rate. You can see that it has climbed 0.2% in the last couple of days via Apex Legends Status – and we’re expecting this to increase further ahead of the next major update.
While we can’t comment on whether Horizon’s popularity will fully recover by the time this alteration is implemented, Medina’s phrasing is interesting. He said that the change itself “wasn’t ready for prime time”. This could mean that there’s something of a universal accuracy nerf coming in the next major update, so using Horizon’s Gravity Lift will still feel somewhat comparable to using things like ziplines. However, it could also mean that the change itself wasn’t ready.
It might sound like a bit of a long shot, but it could mean that this change was too impactful in its current state. So, there’s still hope for you yet, Horizon mains. But, we’ll have to wait and see what the next set of Apex Legends patch notes entail.
This title might be one of the best battle royale games out there, and you could certainly argue that it’s one of the best competitive FPS games available, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect – and this is an example of that. We’re just glad that Respawn was quick to rectify its’ apparent mistake – even if we’re not sure that really is the case. This alteration was something criticised by the fans, so who knows if we’ll see it make a return.