With Apex Legends’ newest character, Vantage, Respawn wanted to get across the fantasy of a sniper character – a long-range nightmare that can down other players from across the map. The first idea that came to mind was to give her a powerful rifle, akin to the game’s Kraber special weapon.
The problem was that the Kraber is supposed to be hard to come by. Only available in care packages and stocked with limited ammo, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see two of them in a single match. If every single team had a Vantage, suddenly there are potentially 20 Krabers, all popping heads in an instant. It would change the game completely.
“One of the things the Kraber also has is potentially no warning,” Vantage lead designer Chris Winder says. “You could just be sitting somewhere, looking in a direction, and then be down. Or, if it’s a body shot, that’s quite a lot of damage. So we knew we had to do something about that.”
So the team tried to make it so that players knew shots were coming. One iteration saw Vantage require a lock-on before she could fire, while another warned players of incoming shots with a voice line.
“We tried a bunch of different mechanics around trying to communicate that ahead of time and, and give players a way to avoid that, or potentially mitigate that after the fact,” Winder explains. “So maybe it still does a lot of damage, but there’s a way to stop some of it after you’re hit in some way.”
In the end, none of these ideas felt fair. The next iteration of Vantage saw her sniper rifles used as a debuffing tool – stunning, locking, limiting.
“You could imagine the debuffs we have, like slows and silences, and things like that, that we could try,” Winder says. “It could just debuff those targets and do some minimal amount of damage, but really just be about the debuff, and that’s the purpose of the Ultimate. I think some of those things worked from a gameplay standpoint – there was a loop around using it, and you understood why and your team understood what to do when those shots happened. But the thing we weren’t hitting at that point was the sniper fantasy. It didn’t really feel like you were holding a sniper rifle – it felt like you were holding a debuff gun.”
That’s why the team settled on Vantage’s current kit. Her Ultimate ability, Sniper’s Mark, allows her to pull out a custom-built Sentinel, fitted with a 3x/5x scope. Rather than having to wait until it’s fully charged, her Ultimate is unique in that it has an ammo counter that ticks up from one to a maximum of five shots, and it’s up to the player when to deploy it. Let the ammo counter tick up if you want more chances to miss. You’re also aided by a visual prompt on the scope that tells you where to aim to account for bullet drop.
The rifle deals 50 damage for a body shot, but any follow-up shots from the weapon deal 100 damage. You can also benefit from headshot multipliers and amped-up Rampart shields.
“The idea is that the first shot does some lower amount of damage – and we played around a lot with that number or what that initial damage should be – and that second shot is where you get that larger amount of damage,” Winder explains. “And again, we played around with that number.”
Skilled players will be able to capitalize on that first shot, but the system also gives players on the receiving end the chance to slide out of danger instead of just being insta-downed. If that sounds frustrating as a Vantage player, don’t worry – there’s more to the rifle than dealing damage.
Anyone who’s hit by a shot from Vantage’s Ultimate ability becomes marked. It’s not a visual ping like a Bloodhound scan, but rather an invitation for your teammates to focus their fire on that player. Any shots your teammates land with other weapons after they’re marked will deal 15% more damage.
Vantage is a sniper Legend who’s built for the push. Her Tactical ability, the brilliantly named Echo Relocation, allows her to position her pet creature, Echo, anywhere on the field. As long as she has a line of sight to Echo, she can bounce her way over to them. Vantage can also cancel out of the bounce or double jump off the end of it. Smart positioning of Echo can be used for fast retreats, regrouping with teammates, or, most excitingly, crafty flanks.
This is coupled with Vantage’s Passive ability, Spotter’s Lens, which allows her to see shield rarity, team size, and range, and share that information with her teammates. You’ll know exactly when it’s time to push.
“The original goal was really around encouraging long-range engagements,” Winder says. “Can we make a character who’s based purely around long-range? So the first versions of the kit didn’t have any movement, there was no Echo, there was no movement tactical. You can end up too far from your team, or getting to high ground to make those shots can be a chore.
“Catching up or closing on a team when you have done those first few shots of damage is really difficult if you don’t have a character on your team that can help you do that. So that created that need to solve this problem, and Echo was it.”
Paired with Ash, you can see why Season 14 is called Hunted. With Ash’s Passive telling the team where death boxes are and Vantage’s abilities letting them know when to capitalize, I can see this being one of the most aggressive seasons of Apex Legends yet – especially with the other new additions like close quarter combat in Kings Canyon and laser sight attachments coming. But what other team compositions does Respawn like for Vantage?
“A Rampart setting up some shields for her to shoot through to amp that damage even further,” Winder says. “Ash is a good one, as you mentioned, or any other movement Legend – Octane with the jump pad or Pathfinder with his grapple and the zipline itself. As she is now, she doesn’t really need the mobility from other legends to get there. But the fact that those legends have the mobility to pounce on a team, those are going to be good combinations.”
On the flip side, movement ability characters will also be the Legends that Vantage players have to watch out for on the enemy team – any character who can take advantage of her isolation. She’ll also have to deal with shield-based characters, who will likely become more important over Season 14.
Already through internal playtesting, the development team has seen some brilliant Vantage plays – Octane being shot out of the air like a clay pigeon, people being popped off ziplines, and more.
“I think that most impressive are the ones where they’re very deliberate in the flanking,” design director Evan Nikolich explains. “Like, you get suppressed, then you lose track of Echo, and then all of a sudden you’re getting shot. It’s like, ‘Oh, no, I have to reposition.’ So it’s like learning that new skill of knowing where Vantage is on the field. Now I have to respect her, but also where Echo is – where she could possibly be coming from. So yeah, some high-skill plays there.”
Apex Legends Season 14 lands on August 9. Check out our hub at that link for all the details.
Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.
