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Videogame Volumes: esports in school

Esports classes return with a new level

Esports gears up for first competition Monday

The popular video game from the battle royale genre, Apex Legends, dropped a new season for its players bringing tweaks to gameplay and a new character. However, as I played throughout the week, I noticed it still lacks a major change to the ranked system and has been playing out the same as last season.

The new season brought around the reappearance of an old map and character adjustments but the game still falls flat. Kings Canyon, this season’s ranked map, is a horrible close-quarter map where team fights end five seconds after starting and you’re constantly bombarded by other teams looking to clean up the fight that just happened. 

Season 14 has also introduced a brand new character named Vantage but so far I’ve found little to no use for her. She’s made for long range fights but with Kings Canyon being so close her abilities have rarely made a positive impact in my team fights. They’ve also tried to balance overpowered characters, but somehow chose the wrong ones so Seer, who can essentially see through walls, is still freely roaming the map having the deciding impact on all fights. 

The biggest concern I’ve found with this new season is how the rank system has remained unchanged ever since they removed the limit on how many points you get from kills, making the games go by extremely fast. Each ranked game has become a repetitive cycle of gearing up for 10 minutes only to find that there are four of 20 teams remaining. : Looking towards the next split happening in a month, I hope they revamp the ranked system and do the necessary character balances so games aren’t the same boring cycle.