Despite Apex Legends being a four-year-old game, the number of patches that Respawn Entertainment puts out help keep it fresh. While this is to be expected of any live-service game, Apex Legends does it in such a way that old content is given as much attention as the new stuff. This practice means weapons and Legends that were first introduced at launch are still viable today.
Apex Legends' 16th season, Revelry, feels like a pitstop for Respawn Entertainment. For the first time since launch, the developers are not adding a new Legend or a slew of map changes. Instead, it is taking a look at what the team has built over four years and attempting to refine it for a new era. The class system has been reworked, along with several additional changes for the existing weapons and Legends, notably including Bloodhound.
A Brand-New Bloodhound Hits Apex Legends
Prior to Revelry's launch, Bloodhound was overshadowed by a more overpowered Legend: Seer. While Bloodhound could still scan enemies, and was the first Recon Legend to popularize wallhacks, the long cooldown for Eye of The Allfather made it inferior to Seer's Focus of Attention, Heart Seeker, and Exhibit abilities.
With the new and improved Bloodhound, Respawn Entertainment decided to lean into the character's skills as a tracker. Bloodhound's Tracker passive allows them to see where opponents have been, but it also spawns in white ravens around the map when players aren't in a fight. Interacting with these ravens or scanning them with Eye of The Allfather causes them to fly in the direction of the nearest enemy squad, also shown on the Bloodhound squad's minimaps. Interacting with the white ravens also causes both Eye of The Allfather and Beast of The Hunt to recover 25 percent of their charges, whereas scanning white ravens with Eye of The Allfather will fully refund the ability.
The second-biggest change to Bloodhound is to their ultimate ability, Beast of The Hunt. In addition to increasing Bloodhound's movement speed, changing their vision to black and white, and potentially lengthening the ultimate's duration as long as players down enemies, Beast of the Hunt now deploys white ravens that fly toward the nearest enemy. This overrides Tracker's rule of white ravens not spawning during combat, as downing enemies also spawns additional ravens that can be scanned with Eye of The Allfather, further increasing the number of times players can scan. To balance the ultimate, Respawn Entertainment removed Beast of The Hunt's ability to decrease Eye of The Allfather's cooldown.
The New Bloodhound Makes Apex Players Feel Like the Ultimate Hunter
Though Bloodhound may not be the scanning menace they once were, changes to the Legend lead to a more unique style of play. Bloodhound players now have to keep an eye out for white ravens and either interact with or scan them as much as possible. While scanning ravens does refund the use of Eye of The Allfather, those who want to adopt a stealthy approach can interact with the birds instead. This method is completely silent and doesn't trigger any visual cues that might alert nearby enemies.
Whatever method players choose to employ, interacting with the white ravens and enemy tracks makes Bloodhound great for finding opponents. Those who love playing Apex's Duos or Trios modes instead of Ranked Leagues will find a lot of use for the Tracker passive, especially coupled with the new Recon ability to find everyone on the map using Survey Beacons. Interacting with the environment and paying attention to visual cues may take some time to get used to, but those who play Bloodhound will find the advantages they bring stand out as much as any other Recon Legend.
Apex Legends is available for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
