One thing many players of battle royale games agree on is that there needs to be some sort of faster movement in the game to help get them around the map. Usually, that will come in the form of some new addition like teleporters or launch towers, vehicles, or layer abilities. It isn't always an easy thing to balance, however, as Fortnite players will remember the debacle that was the addition of planes. Apex Legends added a vehicle to the Olympus map on its release, and it could be coming to the other maps in the game as well.
The first and only vehicle currently in Apex Legends is the Trident. The Trident is a hover skiff that allows players to travel across the map rather quickly but isn't such a game-changer that it becomes a universally-used object. While riding the Trident, all on-board players take damage when the vehicle is damaged, and the Trident itself can't deal damage to players by running into them so it can't be used as a weapon. While players weren't sure about it when it released and some may not like the Trident's addition in Apex Legends, it generally feels like a balanced feature that hasn't utterly altered the game.
Jason McCord, the design director at Respawn, spoke to RockPaperShotgun about Apex Legends Season 8 and discussed the addition of vehicles to other maps during that interview. When asked about the Trident on other maps, McCord said that they tried it out for fun on King's Canyon and World's Edge, but that the Trident was specifically tuned for Olympus and a lot of adjustments would need to be made if it was added to the older maps. When it came to new vehicles or the possibility of putting the Trident into the older maps, McCord said “It’d be way in the future, but we’re all excited about the idea,” and added that the changes wouldn't be coming anytime soon.
Both King's Canyon and World's Edge have undergone significant changes since their releases. King's Canyon itself is getting a major makeover for Season 8 of Apex Legends. While vehicle additions may be in the far-off future, players can expect quite a few changes coming in the newest season. The new legend addition Fuse and a new weapon in a 30.-30 Repeating Rifle combined with the many ability changes and new item rotations could heavily shift the meta. Players will have to wait and see what the future of Apex Legends holds, but the development team at Respawn seems to be excited and planning well into the future.
Apex Legends is available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It's scheduled to release for Nintendo Switch this year and Android and iOS in 2022.
Source: RockPaperShotgun
