What was once a tiny roadblock to getting into your first match is about to get a huge upgrade. The soon to be released Firing Range lets you pick any Legend, use any weapon, and grab any loot. The folks at Respawn showed the new Firing Range off in a livestream on Friday. Fast forward to around seven minutes in the video below to see it in action.
While the diehards won’t need the Firing Range to practice, it will be a fantastic spot to see changes to the always evolving Apex Legends. It gives you a nice, calm spot to see all the tweaks to weapon damage or hop-ups before diving into a match.
I could see myself jumping in and giving new hop-ups a whirl. Or, figuring out how many headshots it takes to down an enemy without looking for a spreadsheet on Reddit.
Design Director Chad Grenier says the new Firing Range gives Respawn a new place they can experiment with. Maybe this upcoming upgrade isn’t all that’s coming?
Now that I think about it, a training mode more like Rocket League would great. Rocket League’s training modes are more situational. You’re trying to hit certain types of shots into a goal. Respawn could go a similar route by adding enemies zipping across the Firing Range. Or, having a bunch of Caustic canisters lying around and you have to find the best way around them. Toss in situations that you might find while playing a match. Seeing how much damage a particular weapon does is cool and all, but knowing how to lead shots would be much more handy.
The rest of the livestream touches on the Shadowfall mode coming to the Halloween event and then a deep dive into the creation of the original map. You can see the transformation of King’s Canyon from what the devs play when there playtesting in the early days to what it looks like after the art team gets their hands on it.
Here’s Thunderdome before.
And four months after the art team had been working on it. The camera is in the same spot in both pictures, and the transformation is stunning.
Check out the full livestream for more behind-the-scenes looks at the creation of King’s Canyon.