Apex Legends patch notes: Season 28 gets Hardlight plus Fuse, Bloodhound, and Catalyst buffs

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) and Respawn Entertainment just revealed the latest Apex Legends patch notes. This update goes into what Hardlight Mesh as a new mechanic, changes to Fuse, Bloodhound, plus Catalyst, and more.

This update introduces destructible and repairable Hardlight Mesh windows. According to EA, players can see through Hardlight but cannot shoot or move through it until it's broken. Breaking Hardlight requires dealing damage via explosives, snipers, shotguns, or melee. Meanwhile, Hardlight can be repaired and reinforced with Controller legends.

In terms of legends, Fuse gets the new Knuckle Jumper upgrade and a reworked ultimate. He can also drop flames from his ultimate via the new Pyro Techniques upgrade and recharge his ultimate via explosion damage from the Reignition upgrade.

"Fuse has been in our artillery’s sights for some time now, and the introduction of Hardlight Glass is a great time to bring his updated explosives into center stage," senior technical designer Devin Weise explained. "We’re making all of Fuse’s abilities more cohesive and fast paced so that he’s equipped to get himself into better positions, and more importantly, get his adversaries out of them. His new Ultimate has a lot more uses in a lot more places while new Upgrades give him flexibility between improved movement and area control."

Next, Bloodhound's ultimate has a significantly reduced cooldown. He can also extend it by chaining eliminations. His new Raven’s Flight upgrade, meanwhile, gives White Ravens longer range. Taste of Blood heals on knock during his ultimate as well.

According to Weise, this should make Bloodhound's tactical feel faster and more fluid. These early changes also lay the groundwork for the team's future plans for Bloodhound.

Catalyst receives buffs as well. That is, Piercing Spikes travel further and trigger faster while the Hidden Spikes and Sole Piercer upgrades get improved damage output. Catalyst's Dark Veil ultimate also receives defensive improvements as it can be deployed horizontally to seal chokepoints.

"Catalyst has very unique controlling tools in her kit, but we’d like to amp up her versatility," Weise said. "With a larger, faster tactical and more flexible options for both her ultimate and upgrades, Catalyst players should feel far more capable when holding a zone. We can’t wait to see the new types of plays now in the cards with her ultimate, especially."

As for other Apex Legends Breach patch notes, Drop Zone gets removed from ranked after feedback from players. Bot Royale, meanwhile, sees the removal of XP caps and challenges restrictions. It also supports between one to five human squads.

Next, Shotgun hop-ups return for Mastiff, Peacekeeper, and EVA-8 Auto while Marksman weapons have reduced fire-rate and firepower. G7 Scout moves to the Care Package. In terms of the loot pool, Knockdown Shields are removed from it and now scale with legend level. White Backpacks are equipped at the start of and removed from the loot pool as well.

In celebration of the game's seven-year anniversary, players can soon get rewards like four legends, skins, Mythic Peacekeeper drops, chances at Heirloom Shards, and even a Reactive Weapon Pack or Exotic Shards via the Milestone Reward Track.

Finally, the next Premium Battle Pass offers legendary skins for Octane and Seer, an EVA-8 legendary weapon skin, Exotic Shards, plus a Reactive Bocek skin. The Ultimate version adds 1,200 Crafting Metals and 14 Apex Packs. The Ultimate+ version includes all Ultimate Battle Pass items, 10 extra Battle Pass levels, Ultimate+ skin variants for Octane and Seer, plus instant rewards such as Crafting Metals and Apex Packs.

These Apex Legends patch notes go live with the start of Season 28 on Feb. 10 at 10 a.m. PT.