Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment said today that a change to Horizon’s Gravity Lift tactical that sent shockwaves through the community was unintentional.
In a tweet shared to the official Respawn account this evening, the developer spoke about the mistake and its fix. “Accuracy while shooting from Horizon’s Gravity Lift was inadvertently affected with the 15.1 update,” the tweet reads. “We’ve just rolled out a fix to correct this.” At time of writing, the fix should be live for all players.
When Apex’s Spellbound collection event went live earlier this week, players noticed that Horizon’s Gravity Lift seemed to be affecting players differently than it did previously. Before the update, players could float to the top of the Gravity Lift and shoot at enemies on the ground with the usual weapon accuracy. After the event began, accuracy for legends floating at the top of the lift dramatically decreased, making it much harder to hit enemies below.
Players were unclear as to whether the adjustment was a bug or a “shadow nerf” for Horizon, who has been an incredibly strong pick for the last few months. Prior to the inadvertent adjustment, she had a 23.7 percent pick rate and a 45 percent win rate with master and Apex Predator-level players; she’s since fallen to a 19.3 percent pick rate, according to stats site Apex Legends Status. Some believed the change was a nerf that was supposed to arrive in season 16, while others thought Respawn just didn’t want to call attention to the change. No Horizon changes were mentioned in Spellbound’s patch notes.
With confirmation from Respawn that this change was accidental, Horizon’s pick rate will likely surge again in the next few days. Many players have been calling for a nerf for the legend for weeks now, saying that she’s too strong in comparison to the rest of the cast at the very highest levels of play. It remains to be seen how Respawn will adjust her in the future following this accidental change.
