Respawn just recently revealed Horizon to be its latest character in season 7 of Apex Legends.
And just like every other season, players are concerned that Horizon might be shipped in a pretty weak state. Every new season, Respawn has a tendency of releasing weak characters at first. Later down the line, these characters would get some significant buffs and become meta several seasons after their initial release.
Revenant can be one of the more prime examples. While the hype for legends like Revenant and Crypto was at an all-time high before their official release, the actual release in turn didn’t meet the expectation of most players.
Power creep in Apex Legends:
“Why characters in Apex are generally weak on release (and if you couldn’t tell, as someone working on the Legend meta, I’ve been thinking about this rather a lot recently ;P): my theory is that being a gun game precludes us from using certain power levels for abilities” u/DanielZKlein on power creep in Apex Legends.
Basically, the dev explains that since Apex Legends is a “gun” game that precludes them from implementing powers or abilities that could harm the game in the long term. As a result, Respawn is more comfortable with buffing their characters later down the line instead of shipping them in a broken state.
“We’re not trying to ship weak Legends, but it’s really hard to make Legends strong in a way we can be confident won’t ruin the game for everyone for a week or two. We’ll continue buffing Legends that release weak“, u/DanielZKlein also added.
- More Related: Apex Legends season 7 – Ascension trailer gives players a first glimpse into Olympus, Hoverbike, and Horizon
In short, to combat power creep in a hero shooter game with damaging abilities, Respawn feels shipping legends in their current way is more feasible in the long run.
