Apex Legends – February 20 HAVOC Update

This week, the Respawn team introduced the HAVOC energy assault rifle into Apex Legends. Senior Designer Sean Slayback (RespawnSean) took to the Apex Legends subreddit to discuss these changes with the community. Check out all the details in his own words below, or head over to the official Reddit post and jump into the conversation.

Hey everyone, I'm Sean Slayback and I'm the primary weapons designer for Apex Legends. Today the weapons team and I are really excited to unleash our latest high-tech baby into Kings Canyon: the HAVOC Energy Assault Rifle.

The HAVOC's default fire mode is full-auto with a charge time. This means you have to hold the trigger down before the gun will start firing. Once those energy rounds start flying, their high damage, high velocity, and low bullet drop make up for having to wait.

The HAVOC is the first weapon that is compatible with multiple hop-up attachments! (You can still only use one at a time.) Check it out:

1) Turbocharger – Don't want to wait for autofire charge-up time? Find a Turbocharger and forget all that.

• Equip this rare hopup to eliminate autofire charge time and unleash the HAVOC's full autofire DPS potential.

2) Selectfire Receiver – Enables Fire Select to Hitscan Charge Beam.

• This single fire mode charges a powerful shot over time, then releases it automatically when it's ready. A long blue beam traces out across the battlefield, and you instantly hit your target with the raw power of
• The play pattern is new to Apex Legends and twists our normal combat, requiring players to keep the reticle on target with precision.
• HITSCAN – yeah I said it. Unlike other weapons in Apex Legends, "hitscan" weapons pretty much instantly hit the player under your reticle when they fire.
• Don't lead your target! Instead, make sure the reticle is directly on top of your target when the charge beam fires.
• HAVOC Charge Beam mode has damage falloff so you can't hitscan other players for big damage across the map without counterplay.
• Your 25 round mag goes through five rounds at a time to power this incredible feat of science.

So the HAVOC has multiple personalities which we think is unique and cool. Pair your Turbocharged HAVOC with a HCOG Bruiser optic attachment for close-quarters autofire devastation, or link it with a 2-4x AOG attachment and Selectfire Receiver to hitscan your targets at midrange. I've heard there could be rare fully kitted HAVOCs out there as well . . .

Behind the Scenes: It's critical to weapon feel that each weapon have a strong underlying power fantasy. For the HAVOC, our initial reference point was this scene in Elysium where Matt Damon shreds a bad guy on the space station with the CHEMRAIL energy rifle. Yussssss.

If you have any feedback or questions for us about the HAVOC or anything else weapons related, let us know in the comments here. I'll keep dropping by to respond, and as always Jayfresh_Respawn (Community Manager Jay Frechette) and Garza_RSPN (Community Coordinator Jason Garza) should be around, too.

On behalf of every dev on the Apex team, thanks for playing! It's been an absolutely incredible first few weeks for us. We're working really hard on new stuff that we think you're gonna love and can't wait to show you more. But until then, have fun mastering the HAVOC!

– Sean Slayback

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