Apex Legends: Season 5 Update — Everything New and Changed

Season 5, titled Fortune's Favor, is here, and there is a lot to unpack. Between a new legend, a reworked map, the first-ever seasonal quest, and a wave of balance tweaks, the patch notes run long. This guide walks you through every meaningful change so you can step into the game on May 12 with an advantage instead of a surprise. Read it once, and you will know exactly what to expect.

New Content

Loba joins the roster. Stylish, refined, and resourceful, Loba teleports wherever she wants using her jumping bracelet. Her tactical, Burglar's Best Friend, throws the bracelet to warp her to an otherwise unreachable spot or to escape danger in a hurry. Her ultimate, Black Market Boutique, drops a portable device that teleports nearby loot straight into your backpack — every player, ally or enemy, can grab two items each. Her passive, Eye for Quality, lets her see nearby purple and gold loot through walls at the same range as her ultimate.

Kings Canyon gets rebuilt. Skull Town and Thunderwatch have fallen. A new point of interest, Offshore Rig, appears along the broken coastline. On the opposite side of the map, shoreline digs now connect the old Relay and Wetlands, with the Wetlands replaced by a Capacitor excavation site and a new underground path leading straight to Singh Labs. The Nesting Grounds keep growing inside the Reclaimed Forest, expanding toward Singh Labs with a small camp outside The Cage. Kings Canyon is the only map for the first two weeks, giving everyone time to learn it before World's Edge returns to the rotation.

The Charge Tower. Discovered while excavating Kings Canyon, this underground device instantly grants 100% ultimate charge to every legend standing on its platform the moment the charging wave fires.

Seasonal quest — Broken Ghost. Apex's first seasonal quest has arrived. Across the whole season, hunt down nine mysterious relics. Find your first daily treasure pack in the battle royale mode to begin the chase, then enjoy new story beats, gameplay, and rewards released free every week.

Seasonal tab and battle pass. All seasonal content now lives in a dedicated lobby tab where you can find the Battle Pass, Seasonal Quest, and Challenges menu, plus upcoming events. The Season 5 Battle Pass brings 100 exclusive items — gold skins, charms, skydive emotes, Apex Packs, level boosts, and loading screens — earned through daily and weekly challenges.

Changes and Quality of Life

Ranked Series 4 and Reconnect. A new ranked split launches, keeping last season's format but adding one critical feature: Reconnect. Players who leave a match by accident — crashes, Alt+F4, or Task Manager kills, anything outside the system menu — can now rejoin. Just restart the game and return to the lobby; if the match is still live and within the time limit, the game auto-reconnects. Your character holds its pre-disconnect state (shown with a "Disconnected" icon to teammates) and you resume exactly where you left off, unless you were already eliminated. A disconnected legend can still be knocked and finished, but if downed you can be revived normally via a banner at a respawn beacon regardless of reconnect. Fail to rejoin in time and you are removed and flagged as having abandoned the match; in ranked, abandoning or timing out triggers an early-exit penalty — but only after you are fully cleared, so don't quit while a teammate can still return.

Hero voice lines. Specific legend pairings now trigger unique dialogue. Wonder how Loba thanks Revenant? She certainly won't say "thanks." Explore the roster to find more of these easter eggs.

Balance Adjustments

Legend updates. Mirage's long-awaited rework is here: his tactical Psyche Out now lets you directly control a decoy that mirrors your every move for 60 seconds (deploying a new one deletes the old), his ultimate Life of the Party sends out a squad of mimicking decoys on a 60-second cooldown, and his passive Now You See Me now cloaks him when using respawn beacons and reviving allies, not just when knocked. Bloodhound's Eye of the Allfather lasts longer (3s to 4s) and cools down faster (35s to 25s). Crypto's drone can now mark enemy beacons from the drone view to warn teammates. Lifeline care-package spawns increase by 20%, and no longer contain knockdown shields. Caustic's gas no longer slows teammates and won't trigger from the other side of a door — an experimental change under watch. Octane's jump-pad cooldown drops from 90s to 60s as a first step toward better team utility. Gibraltar's Dome Shield duration falls from 18s to 12s to trim his team-fight dominance. Pathfinder's Grappling Hook cooldown rises sharply from 15s to 35s, reining in his repeated repositioning in a single fight.

Weapons and loot. Season 5 adds no new gun — the devs believe the weapon pool has hit its sweet spot — but it reshuffles the vault. The Mastiff leaves the supply drop to become a regular weapon, weakened accordingly: per-pellet damage 18 to 13, headshot multiplier 2.0 to 1.25, fire rate 1.3 to 1.0, tighter spread like other shotguns, but mag size up to 46. The Peacekeeper moves into the drop with buffs: tighter spread, faster fire interval (1.25s to 0.9s), quicker reloads, and a larger projectile for close-range consistency. The Alternator mag grows (19 / 22 / 25 / 27 with the three-tier extended mag). The RE-45 damage rises 11 to 12 with faster reloads. The Havoc gains more vertical and horizontal recoil, plus extra kick on the first two shots. The Longbow headshot multiplier dips 2.15 to 2.1, and the P2020's drops 2.1 to 2.0. Skullpiercer Rifling returns: it pushes the Longbow headshot multiplier to 2.5 and the P2020's to 2.25. The gold armor's old 50% faster healing is replaced by a new perk — small batts and syringes heal for double when used.

Season 5 rewards players who take time to relearn the map and the reshuffled loot pool. Master the Charge Tower rotations and Loba's economy, and the season is yours to take.