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Apex Legends’ Ash revealed character with quietest footsteps

Stealth isn't the be-all end-all in Respawn Entertainment's battle royale shooter, but one Apex Legends player has worked out which character is the sneakiest.

Apex Legends quietest footsteps test Ash: an image of Seer from the battle royale shooter

We know stealth isn’t the most impactful factor when it comes to success in Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale shooter, but tactfully choosing when to keep quiet can make quite a bit of difference when you’re trying to win in Apex Legends – especially if you’re sitting in the final circle. But, outside of utilising abilities like Wraith’s Into The Void or Mirage’s Life Of The Party, how’re you supposed to know which character is the best when it comes to stealth? Well, one dedicated Apex Legends fan has managed to work out which Apex Legends character has the quietest footstep audio – so, that’s a start.

In an effort to work out which character has the quietest footstep audio at the moment, Apex Legends fan ‘Pescodar189‘ has taken to Reddit with dBFS (decibels relative to full scale) recordings for every single character in this battle royale. They haven’t just recorded a bunch of gameplay clips, though. This test, this somewhat scientific experiment, has been conducted with almost every influencing factor in mind.

Not only has Pescodar taken the average readings from a “timescale”, rather than just noting a character’s peak audio output, they have also conducted this experiment on three different in-game surfaces: dirt, stone, and metal. In an effort to reinforce any findings they might have stumbled onto, they also tested two of the characters in live games on World’s Edge and two games on Broken Moon. As you can read in Pescodar’s explanatory Reddit post here, they also tested “pieces of this” experiment on different computers using different settings.

But, what does all this testing boil down to? Who is the quietest Apex Legends character – and are they at the top of our Apex Legends tier list?

Well, those of you out there looking to stay under the radar will be pleased to know that Ash, Apex Legends’ incisive instigator and mechanical marauder, is in-fact the quietest character when it comes to footsteps. We know Ash doesn’t technically have feet, so this checks out, but it’s interesting when you consider the fact that she’s not really built to be a stealth character in-game.

Recording Ash’s dBFS, Pescodar found that she’s anywhere from two to 11 dFBS quieter than every other Apex Legends character in-game on dirt; something that remains consistent throughout this fan’s testing.

“In all tests, she was 5-8 dB quieter than the average of the other legends… In every test, she was either the quietest or second quietest. Qualitatively, she makes very little noise.”

Looking at the data provided, a crouched Revenant or Horizon are the two next best options when it comes to keeping quiet. However, regular running Revenant, Mirage, and Wraith are all offering some of the quietest footsteps in this battle royale.

Interestingly, the loudest legends – as per the studies linked above – are Bloodhound and Gibraltar. As a defensive, shield-based legend, we don’t think Gibralar is built for stealth. However, recon legend Bloodhound having some of the loudest footsteps in Apex Legends is quite surprising. Especially when you consider the fact that Bloodhound is a hunter – a profession where loud footsteps could cause quite the problem. It’s also interesting to see that Octane’s footstep audio, with and without Stim activated, is largely uniform.

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It’s also worth noting that every legend could be heard from around 95m away, except for Seer (which stops at 86m) and Ash (which stops at 74m).

Seer is one of the quieter legends, but it’s clear that Ash is easily the best Apex Legends character when it comes to quiet movement and sneaky stealth plays. Is this going to help you climb the Apex Legends ranks? It’s hard to say, but it can’t hurt.

Apex Legends is one of the best battle royale games out there, and is actually considered one of the best competitive FPS games too. Footsteps and their loudness might not be a reason for that, but it’s certainly something to consider – and the fact that footstep audio isn’t at a uniform volume is an interesting thing to find out.