Of the 21 playable characters inApex Legends' roster, only 5 belong to the Recon class. These legends - Bloodhound, Pathfinder, Crypto, Valkyrie, and Seer - specialize in gathering information such as the next ring location, the number of enemy squads in the vicinity, and most importantly, the precise location of said squads. Information is half the battle inApex Legends, and having a Recon legend on the squad will ensure that no one gets jumped by a surprise third party.
But recently,Apex Legendshas been suffering from an overpopulation of characters that can provide their squad and/or themselves with the ability to see enemies even through cover. Not counting those in the Recon class,legends such as Fuseand Mad Maggie have wallhack abilities that, while not necessarily overpowered, make it a tad unfair for those caught in them. Seeing asApex Legendsis a battle royale based around weapons and abilities, adding too many characters with such powerful reconnaissance tools could harm the game in the long run.
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Those Were The Old Recon Days
Back in 2019 whenApex Legendsfirst launched, the only character with the ability to provide their squad with wallhacks was Bloodhound. Their tactical ability - Eye of the Allfather - allowed them to scan the area ahead of them, revealing enemies through cover and marking their current position. Eye of the Allfather, along with Bloodhound’s Beast of The Hunt ultimate ability, has seen numerous buffs and nerfs throughout the game’s lifespan, but it still makesBloodhound one of the strongest playable charactersinApex Legends.
Since then, otherRecon legends have tried to emulate their abilities. Crypto provides a periodically scanning eye in the sky with his Surveillance Drone. Valkyrie can passively scan enemies in her line of sight as she skydives with her Jetfighter HUD. Seer can sense enemies through walls with his Heart Seeker passive and can even mark and cancel some of their actions with his Focus of Attention tactical ability (his ultimate ability, Exhibit, also allows him to see all moving enemies in a certain radius). While not all of these abilities provide the immediate intel that Blodhound’s scans do, they work within the context of the legends' backgrounds and their role as Recon characters.
Wallhacks Are Spreading Out of The Recon Class
Unfortunately, more characters outside of the Recon legends have been receiving wallhack abilities to compete in this information war. Fuse’s ultimate ability, The Motherlode, was given the ability to allow him and his quad to see enemies caught in the ring of fire (this was done to make Fuse a stronger legend as compared to his lackluster launch state). Ash’s passive, Marked for Death, lets her ping the location of enemy squads that have killed players whose death boxes she has interacted with.Even the previous season’s Mad Maggiehas wallhacks thanks to her Warlord’s Ire passive which lets her see enemies she has recently damaged. This makes it extremely easy for squads running these characters to hunt down enemies affected by these abilities, as the enemy squad has to manually locate their attackers before and during a fight.
An Unfair Skill Gap Is No One’s Idea of Fun
It’s one thing to be killed by a strong opponent and another to be killed by an opponent with wallhack abilities. Even though the wallhacks work within the context of the game, repeatedly getting downed by opponents with such abilities feels like an unfair fight.Multiple multiplayer games consider using wallhacks as cheating, and with good reason - it reduces the skill needed in finding and tracking enemies.
IfApex Legendswants to build healthy competition in its games, it has to cut down on all the wallhack abilities. Consideringthe roster of playableApex Legendscharactersis starting to become oversaturated, it is a point of debate as to whetherApex Legendsshould stop adding new legends altogether. Doing either of these things will allow Respawn Entertainment to tighten up their existing roster and balance out the game’s overabundance of abilities with the good gunplay the game is known for.
Apex Legendsis available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.Apex Legends Mobilereleases May 17.
