Season 16 of Apex Legends releases on Feb. 14, and while some major changes coming to classes, playlists, and weapons will no doubt draw the greatest spotlight out of the wealth of new content coming, there are just as many vital quality-of-life updates in the patch.
One of the key ones is to the Firing Range, a place to practice and warm up that’s seen very few updates since the early days of Apex. In season 16, the Firing Range will be getting a multitude of new options that include allowing players to tweak movement and health for the dummies, as well as turn on unlimited ammo or lingering hit indicators to refine their practice regime in a way they haven’t been able to previously.
These changes are all part of a wider approach by Respawn to improve the new player experience and tangentially enhance the options available for Apex veterans as well. “The Firing Range is a great place to get to touch every single weapon in Apex,” Design Director Evan Nikolich said at a recent press event. “Get some reps in, get warmed up, or even just learn weapons you don’t pick up often in a match.”
For the Firing Range to successfully meet these goals in the current season of Apex, it needs to evolve alongside its players and the heightening skill ceiling at the center of the battle royale. To do this, Nikolich explains that the mode will be getting a variety of new features that enhance the complexity of the drills available to the player.
First up is the dummies, which now come with seven settings that can be tweaked to your preferences. “You can practice tracking against what feels like real human targets,” he continued, pointing to settings that include various strafing speeds, shield levels, toggles for crouching, and randomized movement intervals. “We’ll also have dynamic stats that appear any time you deal damage, letting you track your performance with hard numbers you can understand.”
One of the more impressive settings that further improves the Firing Range capabilities is toggle-able hit indicators. These hit indicators show the exact impact of your shots with a temporary imprint on your UI, both marking if they hit the critical spot on a target and the recoil pattern of the unloaded clip. The recoil pattern review is the key element of this feature, allowing players new and old to better understand how each weapon works and how effectively they manage to control the kick of their weapons.
Another change that will no doubt get players the most excited is that the Apex Firing Range will finally feature an option to turn on unlimited ammo. No longer will you need to fill your inventory with ammo boxes from the gun racks, and instead players can focus on maintaining their position and getting their reps in with consistency. Unlimited ammo has been a long-requested feature, so seeing it finally reach the game in season 16 is the exact kind of quality-of-life update that the Firing Range needed.
Yet as Nikolich continues, this isn’t the end for the updates that are coming to the Firing Range. “This is the first of several iterations we’re actually planning for the Firing Range,” he said on the matter. “We’re looking forward to people getting in there. We’re keeping an eye on how they do and getting their feedback on what changes they’d like to see next.”
