Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends continues to get bigger and better with every announcement. During EA Play, the developer announced that the battle royale would not only be getting ports for Steam and Nintendo Switch but would be adding cross-play support as well. It was also announced that the game would be getting some new character buffs as well, and the buff planned for Lifeline could change a lot of players' strategies for team composition.
Lifeline is one of two support characters in Apex Legends. Her role on a team revolves primarily around using her various abilities to heal herself and her teammates. This heal most often comes in the form of her D.O.C. Heal Drone, which was hinted to be receiving a buff in the next update.
This next update will buff Lifeline's Heal Drone by allowing it to not only heal allies, but pick up downed teammates as well. This means the player can pick up their teammate while continuing to concentrate on a firefight, but also allows players to revive both of their teammates simultaneously.
This game-changing strategy was first pointed out by Twitter user @kasey_tc. He tweeted at Jason McCord, the design director for Apex Legends, asking if this would work like he hypothesized it would. With a resounding "Yup!" from Jason, it seems like players will be in for an interesting new ride as they work towards the rank of Apex Predator.
It's incredibly encouraging to see Respawn Entertainment taking risks with major updates to its characters. Sometimes characters sound great while in development, but when they get into players' hands, a rework of a character can be important to maintaining a fun space, like with Bastion from Overwatch.
While many players are excited about this Lifeline buff, there are still those that are frustrated about other aspects of Apex Legends. Along with Lifeline's buff, the speed demon Octane is also supposed to be receiving an enhancement in this next update as well, however, there hasn't been any formal announcement of how they will be fixing him.
Creative Director Chad Grenier also recently revealed why the game used skill-based matchmaking, rather than making it random as some players want. At the end of the day, it seems that Apex Legends has a very passionate player base and like its developers, just want to see what's best for the game.
Apex Legends is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Switch port coming this fall.
Source: Twitter/Jason McCord
