Apex Legendsis gearing up for its Season 19, which will introduce a brand-new Legend: Conduit. The latest addition to the battle royale/hero shooter’s roster is a versatile support with a bright personality, whose teasers have keptApex Legendsfans abuzz with speculation. Ignite is set to arrive next Tuesday, October 31.
Game Rant recently had the opportunity to speak with the writers and designers at Respawn Entertainment about the creation of Conduit, and the other major updates coming toApex Legends.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: I always love hearing about Respawn’s iterative development process for each legend. Can you tell me how her character design and story have changed throughout Conduit’s development?
Christal Rose Hazelton, Conduit Writer: Conduit changed a lot throughout development. I had several pitches for them based on the kit. Allverydifferent. The one most similar to Conduit as she is now was older, more world-weary, but still responsibility-laden–much like her older sister Diwa. When I pitched that, the team realized they wanted someone more positive, humorous, and light. So I tentatively pitched the other idea I had been thinking about which was someone who isa superfanof the Apex Games. People who are fans of something have an excitement, passion, knowledge, and deep love for it. They buzz with contagious energy. And being around, or playing, someone like that really boosts your mood.
Q: Where did the idea to use a Titan Battery in her design come from?
Hazelton: Her kit has always been inspired bythe Monarch Titan, so I wanted to keep that nod in when writing Conduit’s backstory. We talked a lot about Conduit’s personality being the “heart” of the team and energetic like “a living battery” (as well as the Radiant Transfer shield recharge) so it made sense to take that more literally. How that would end up looking in the final design took many conversations. Rachel Downing from the concept team created multiple concepts with a battery and various exosuits/combat rigs.
Chris Winder, Conduit Lead Gameplay Engineer: As Christal Rose mentioned, from a gameplay standpoint the kit had strong inspirations fromthe Monarch Titan inTitanfall 2early on. Knowing this, we looked for ways we could incorporate aspects of the Titan in her suit or in the way she deploys her abilities. This is expressed in the halo-shaped “arms” which are used in her tactical and ultimate abilities and the exo suit legs which enable her passive but the Titan battery is the core, her “source of power” as we call it internally.
Q: Similarly, how has her kit changed since the initial concept? Were there any abilities that were cut or changed?
Winder: Originally, Conduit’s kit played with healing a teammate’s shields for real—not temporarily—at the expense of some of her own. She also had shield regeneration as a passive similar to Wattson but a little faster.
It felt cohesive and played into her self-sacrificing, supportive personality but presented a few gameplay challenges. First, it skewed the way a team uses and thinks about shield resources. Poke fights against a conduit team felt frustrating as they could heal the shield damage for “free.” Secondly, Conduit giving up some of her shields to deploy the tactical meant players were too often disincentivized to use it. Finally, Conduit had a hard time keeping up with fast teammates.
There are a few other aspects of Conduit’s kit that we tried and dropped that I won’t mention here, but they could appear in a future season…
Q: From internal testing and whatnot, how well do Conduit and Lifeline work together in a single squad? Is it possible for them to have TOO much survivability, if that makes sense? Or are there any concerns the team will be looking to address for the combo?
Winder: Conduit and Lifeline do work well together as Conduit focuses on shields and active in-combat support whileLifeline focuses on revives and post-combat health recovery. Add a Newcastle in there and you’ve got the ultimate support squad! At this point we aren’t too worried about them being “too” survivable as they are missing elements that other Legends offer.
Another good combination is Conduit with anyfast-moving Legend like a Pathfinderor Octane as they will “pull” Conduit along because of her passive. This allows them to move together quickly across the map.
Q: What was the hardest element of Conduit to balance?
Winder: Probably the hardest element to balance here was the tuning ofher tactical. How often? How fast do the shields regenerate? How long do they last? Et cetera. Pushing too far here meant a Conduit team felt un-killable. Not enough, and it wasn’t clear Conduit was helping.
Q: Conduit’s backstory is tied to her family like a lot of legends (Newcastle, Octane, Ballistic, etc.). How is her family approach different from other characters?
Hazelton: Her approach is different because, aside from a small faction of Legends, she has a close andhealthy relationship with her familyand they support her. As we’ll later see, Conduit’s conflicts with them revolve around sacrificing her health and well-being to look after the family, despite them having made those same sacrifices for the family in the past. Of course, how she’s doing it looks a bit different than what they did.
Q: Recently, the Apex Legends cookbook came out, and of course, there’s no Conduit representation in it. What kind of food or recipes do you think she would have added to the recipe list?
Hazelton: I wish she was! But we were in the early stages of Conduit at the time and things were very malleable. Probably one of the foods shown in her SFTO trailer! For savory foods, pork sinigang, lumpia shanghai, pancit canton, lechon, or the always popular chicken adobo. If we were to go with desserts, I think perhaps turon (which is banana lumpia with caramel sauce) or halo-halo.
Q: What were the driving motivators behind Storm Point’s reworks and new focuses? With these changes, does Storm Point still remain one of the biggest maps in Apex Legends?
Eduardo Agostini, World Director: First and foremost, we don’t intend to compromise the initial vision for the map, which is it being a large, competitive map with a PvE focus, However, we identified areas where it was distracting from the experience. We instilled more action and quicker pacing by removing some PvE encounters, reduced the overall size of the map, and brought POIs closer to the center which made a more engaging mid-match experience that will satisfy both casual and competitive players. We wanted the update to feel impactful, so we affected around 40% of the map, created a new skybox, and changed the lighting so that no matter where you are, you should feel the overall changes of the season.Storm Point remains the largest of our maps, but we feel these changes should result in a more positive experience for our players.
Q: How does Respawn expect Promo Trials to impact cheaters, smurfs, and things of that nature?
Aaron Rutledge, Experience Design Director: Ideally, it poses a real skill check for people who are trying to cheese their way up the ladder via boosting or playing extremely passively.Cheating and smurfingis a separate endeavor entirely, and we’re always working toward progress on that front. I doubt that Promo Trials will add any extra benefit or motivation to either of those types of bad actors.
Q: As a wrap-up question, what’s everyone looking forward to most for Ignite?
Hazelton: So many things, but most of all hearing Conduit’s line interactions withother Legends. And rainbow Storm Point.
Winder: Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing how players enjoy Conduit as I think she’s a compelling pick for squads to incorporate a support role into their compositions.
Agostini: Looking forward to seeing people’s impressions of the new Storm Point. It’s probably one of our more ambitious map updates and the design and art team poured a lot of love into it - especially that new skybox andWattson’s Pylon.
[End]
Apex Legendsis available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Season 19 kicks off on Tuesday, October 31.
