Apex Legends, one of the latest battle royale games on the block; has recently started its second season with great improvements to its battle pass, among other changes. The battle pass for the first season was largely criticized, and for good reason. In battle royale games, seasons give you a leveling system, and the battle pass entitles you to loot when you reach certain levels.

Typically, the loot is cosmetic stuff. However, Apex Legends‘ first battle pass mostly did not have substantial cosmetics. Most of the rewards on the battle pass were stat trackers for kills, wins, and damage done during the season. The problem was that each character had their own separate tracker, meaning that most of the rewards you got from the first season were stat trackers for characters you wouldn’t even use. Any meaningful cosmetics were few and far between.

Thankfully, the season 2 battle pass has introduced some changes. For one thing, the only stat trackers available are for wins; they’re all unlocked early in the battle pass, so you won’t have to play too much to get one that represents your main character. Another thing is that season 2 introduces several new types of cosmetics that diversifies the pool of rewards. You can unlock alternate loading screens, character specific remixes to replace the main theme and emotes that characters can use during the initial skydiving segment.

Another criticism of the first season battle pass was how much of a grind it was. You earned experience points toward it alongside your normal levels, with bonus experience points given for playing as different characters. This is drastically changed for the new season and may (hopefully) carry this system into future seasons. Building off the short-lived Legendary Hunt event, players are now given daily and weekly missions to accomplish. Beating challenges either earns experience points toward the battle pass or levels it up, providing a more goal-oriented system that players may find more engaging.

Season 2 is also the debut of Wattson, a new defensive character to the roster. Like Caustic, she specializes in area control with her active ability, which creates electric fences that hurt and slow down anyone that walks through them. Her passive ability makes it so that using an ultimate accelerant instantly recharges her ultimate ability, allowing her to place up to three pylons that deflect bullets, recharges shields, and charge her active ability faster. These useful abilities are balanced out by the fact that unlike Caustic’s barrels, which can be hidden reasonably well, her fences and pylons are easy to notice.

Battles are not only changed by the fact that there’s a new character to face, but the map itself has changed. As a cutscene that plays on first starting up shows, the Leviathans that surrounded the arena have walked right in, demolishing familiar places. They also carry loot on them, so you can attack them, though it is risky to do as they can slowly move and are capable of crushing you.

There have also been a bunch of minor changes and additions, cataloged here on the Apex Legends subreddit.

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