For the first time in series history, there will not be a new character joining the roster in Apex Legends season 16. Respawn Entertainment has instead spent that time reworking the class system and making changes to every single character on the roster, to some degree. Some changes are smaller than others, but characters like Wraith, Lifeline, and Seer are among those getting updates.
Instead of Apex Legends' previous four classes, there will be five come season 16—Assault, Skirmisher, Recon, Controller, and Support—better clarifying each character's role. Each class will come with a gameplay perk available to everyone in that designation, and while the character meta of Apex Legends may change significantly because of all this, it's far from the only change coming this season.
Alongside character changes, Respawn is also improving the first-time user experience by adding new orientation matches, bots for new player matches, welcome challenges, and a new first-time player video, all to help newcomers get used to the complex nuances of an Apex Legends match. Furthermore, Apex Legends season 16 will see a number of major changes made to the firing range, with more updates rolling out over the next couple of seasons. Other changes are also being made to offer more less-intensive matches in the game, aside from the standard BR.
At one point, Respawn envisioned that as its Arenas game mode, but that proved not to be the case as the game mode is just as punishing as battle royale, if not more so. Because of this, Respawn has decided to sunset the Apex Legends Arenas game mode and introduce Team Death Match. It'll be live for the first few weeks of season 16, and three weeks into the new season, there will be a new Mixtape Rotation playlist added to the game. This is a permanent addition to the game, which will offer Gun Run, Control, and TDM. It stands to reason the Mixtape playlist will offer more in the future.
While there may not be a new character this season, the weapon meta is getting a new addition—a gun known as The Nemesis. This is the first new weapon in Apex Legends since the season 11 addition of the CAR SMG back in November 2021. And as if this wasn't enough to celebrate Apex Legends' fourth anniversary, there will be a new community-created rewards track and in-game celebrations across all maps at launch.
Apex Legends is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.