Apex Legends Releases New Update for July 2025

Developer Respawn Entertainment has released a new update for its hit battle royale hero shooter Apex Legends, bringing with it new balance changes impacting members of the playable cast. The changes could shift the Apex Legends competitive meta, as players adjust their tactics to account for the alterations to each character's behavior and stats.

Now into its sixth year in operation, Apex Legends has seen a lot of changes since it first launched on the wave of popularity for battle royale multiplayer shooters. Compared to genre leaders like Fortnite and (at the time), PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Apex Legends capitalized on developer Respawn Entertainment's experience creating fast movement-focused shooters like Titanfall and its sequel. The result was one of the best first-person co-op shooters on the market. Apex Legends also incorporated the unique elements of hero shooters, focusing gameplay around a collection of distinctive playable Legends with their own powers, abilities, and cosmetic upgrades. Respawn has also used the seasonal model to deliver new content and updates at a regular pace, as well as altering the game balance to ensure fair competition and shake up the meta.

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By Joshua Duckworth

Less than two weeks after the launch of a smaller Apex Legends patch updating several weapons, Respawn Entertainment delivered a new update with balance changes for characters Revenant, Ash, Ballistic, Alter, and Vantage. The most significant changes are for Revenant and Ash, who swapped classes. Revenant was shifted from Skirmisher class to Assault class, while Ash was changed to Skirmisher from Assault. Alter, Ballistic, Vantage, and Wattson also received tweaks to their abilities.

Aside from the changes to their respective classes, Revenant and Ash also received changes to their abilities. Ash had the maximum range on her Ultimate nerfed, along with her Charged Knock ability replaced with the deathbox-revealing Marked for Death. Revenant had the maximum and minimum velocity on his pounce changed, reducing its top speed, while having ground detection improved to speed his guns. Revenant was the subject of multiple reworks over the years, seeing changes to his abilities on several occasions. Revenant was even removed from Apex Legends temporarily to fix an exploit involving his ultimate.

Following the recent rework of Alter in Apex Legends, Respawn opted to nerf her portals further, increasing the time the chase portal remains open and giving Alter access to Controller perks via the Controller of Worlds upgrade. Ballistic can no longer use Tempest to speed boost his allies and had tactical charges reduced from 2 to 1.

In reaction to the news, players mostly celebrated the nerfs to Alter, Ash, and Ballistic, with some expressing the hope to see fewer full teams consisting only of those characters. Some players also celebrated the fixing of a bug that allowed players to see through Bangalore's smokescreens. Bangalore smoke barriers are a major part of her Apex Legends kit, so the bug made her "useless" for some players until it was fixed. With luck and time, players will find the balance changes satisfactory.

Apex Legends July 2025 Patch Notes

General Gameplay

A fix for Training Mode failing to connect the first or second time.
Resolved an issue with players being able to see through Bangalore Smoke.
Fixed players respawning with grenades instead of primary weapons in hand in Mixtape modes.
Vantage’s Passive Spotter’s Lens did not accurately display the number of targeted shields of an enemy team.
When aiming down sights with the Bocek, Sparrow's position was unnatural-looking compared to the rest of the Legends.
Resolved the PlayStation logos overlapping with Battle Pass information.
Improvements for pathing from bot players.
Fixed the Event Store Button leading to the wrong events.

Balance Changes

Ash

Legend Class: Changed to Skirmisher.
Ultimate: Max distance reduced from 100m to 75m.
Upgrade: Charged Knock Replaced with Marked for Death, reveals enemy deathboxes on your map.

Alter

Increased time for knocked allies to use portal by 1s.
Friends upgrade replaced with Controller of Worlds, gives access to Controller perks.
Increased chase portal open duration from 8.0s to 10.0s.
Decreased portal warning time from 3.5s to 2.5s.

Ballistic