PS Plus Free Game BONUS: A PS4 download for Apex Legends you don't want to miss (Pic: Sony)
Apex Legends progress might be deemed to be 'slowing' but there's no denying that it's one of the breakout hits of 2019.
It's worth remembering that success for the free-to-play FPS came thick and fast for the team at Respawn games, growing to 10 million players in its first 10 days of release and currently boasting around 50 million players worldwide.
But seriously if you needed ANOTHER reason to jump into the fun new Battle Royale shooter, or simply a reason to return if you've turned your back on it, how about some cool free… erm stuff. (no swearing here, please).
Well you're in luck, at least if you're on PS4 that is. Apex Legends has released a brand new PS Plus pack for the game, packed with cosmetic items for you to utilise for your legends.
The pack is available at the time of writing for PlayStation Plus members to claim. You just need a valid PS Plus subscription to do so.
Which we're going to assume most already have since you need the PS4 subscription service in order to play online.
To get the free Apex Legends PS Plus pack you simply need to head to the PlayStation Store. Either through a web browser or with the store through your console.
PS Plus users have a new Apex Legends bonus to download (Pic: EA)
The new Apex Legends PS Plus pack contains two new character skins (Lifeline and Mirage), two banners also for the same characters, and two weapon skins (Eva-8 and R-99).
But we strongly advise picking this up sooner rather than later. We're not messing around.
Why? Well because it's not going to be available forever, and as a matter of fact it seems as though the pack may have replaced the existing Apex Legends PS Plus pack that was previously available to redeem.
• Read More – Don't Forget to Download Overcooked! and What Remains of Edith Finch on PS Plus in May
That pack, released back in March, contained “two PlayStation-themed weapon camos for the Flatline and RE45” – a nice little start to the collection of many, many skins for the heroes and guns in the game.
On top of this, it also had exclusive character colours and banners for playable characters Gibraltar and Bloodhound.
This doesn't appear to be available on the PSN store from what we can see.
So in short. If you play Apex Legends on PS4 and want some cool free stuff, grab it now, because it won't be around forever.
A look at the new PS Plus Apex Legends cosmetics (Pic: EA)
In other news for Apex Legends fans, there's a major new update coming to the game "early next week" although from the May 17 Reddit post it's unclear exactly when that will arrive.
It could be Monday, May 20 or Tuesday, May 21. You can be sure we'll be updating you on details when it does arrive, mind.
On top of simply announcing that the update is coming, Respawn has provided some patch notes to outline some of the major changes the game will see introduce.
It's unclear if these are the only changes and patch notes, or if other fixes are also on the way. Either way, you can find a full breakdown of those changes just below.
Apex Legends Next Update – Patch Notes
AUDIO FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
One of our biggest issues to tackle was improving the audio performance to address issues reported of sounds dropping out, sounds missing for extended time, or distortion for a period of time. We have made improvements both in our code and with our content that will hopefully fix these issues for many players, and for others, at least lower the amount and length of time they encounter audio issues.
We have also addressed some of the other mix issues with the game, including increasing the volume of close proximity enemy footsteps and lowering the overall volume of the game from the character select screen to the end of the drop sequence. We will continue to monitor mix issues and address them as necessary. Below are the notes of improvements weve included in todays patch and were continuing to work on future improvements.
PERFORMANCE
- Improved audio engine to be around 30% more CPU efficient, lessening the chance of distortion or dropouts.
- Lowered impact on data loading through code and content changes to improve potential dropout issues.
Apex Legends Next Update – Patch Notes Continued
QUALITY OF LIFE
- Lowered the master volume of all sounds during the character select screen through the end of the drop sequence.
- Lowered the volume of Wraith's ambient kunai knife sound for those who are sensitive to the sound. If it is still bothersome we will remove it in a later patch.
- Increased the volume of close proximity enemy footsteps for all Legends.
- Increased the priority of enemy footsteps to ensure the sounds play even in heavy combat situations.
- Slightly lowered the volume of Pathfinder footstep sounds heard from the first person view.
- Fixed missing or quiet dryfire (out of ammo trigger click sound) and low ammo (the progressive change in sound that the gun makes as the magazine approaches empty) sounds for the R301, Hemlok, Flatline and RE45.
- Increased the volume of the music that plays when winning a match.
- Added more detailed audio to the Training mission.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed occlusion bug for the "wind down" sound for the Havoc.
- Fixed issue with automatic weapon fire sounds occasionally getting stuck on, usually after a Legend respawns.
- Fixed bug with RE45 missing tail sounds (the echo in the environment after the shot) when in close proximity.
HIT DETECTION FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
As we talked about last week, in this patch weve pushed some fixes that should eliminate many cases of incorrect hit registration. This patch also includes some behind-the-scenes tracking of bullet damage logic. We expect there will still be some remaining hit registration problems, but with these fixes and diagnostic information, we are better equipped to track them down.
One potential cause of hit registration bugs can be simple internet connection problems. In order to determine how much of a factor this is in reality, we have put some time into refining the functionality behind our network problem indicator icons in the upper right of the screen. These icons are now pickier about your connection quality and may show up more frequently than they did before. These icon changes will be useful for us in narrowing down the cause of any bugs that we continue to see. Please continue to share videos and report hit registration issues you still encounter after the patch.
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FIX FOR LIFELINE “PICK ME UP” BANNER BUG ON PS4
- The issue has been resolved and we will be re-enabling the banner after the patch is live.
- NOTE: We made changes to client and backend to address this and itll take a little time to take full effect. Were expecting the error to resolve within a few hours after the patch is live.
[PC ONLY] CRASHES SPECIFIC TO INTEL CPUs
We investigated the crash reports from many people who were crashing frequently and found that Intel CPUs sometimes were not executing the instructions properly in one particular function. A common example was an instruRead More – Source
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