Apex Legends has fallen victim to leaks before. Octane and Wattson were leaked as far back as February 2019, the very month the battle royale shooter launched. Now a whopping nine new characters have been leaked, and they seem legitimate — we even have gameplay.
The leak comes from two separate Reddit threads, starting with user YUSEIRKO’s screenshots of the Legend selection screen. Working down the list from the most recent addition Mad Maggie, we have empathetic shielder Conduit, haunting stalker Scryer, mobile defender Newcastle, satellite savior Uplink, survivalist sniper Vantage, creative builder Catalyst, agile assassin Phantom, tricky trapper Jester, and Apex arms dealer Caliber. Scrolling through the list, it’s easy to predict which heroes are coming first. They all have abilities listed, but most are using basic polygonal models or borrowing animations from Bloodhound. Some have actual headshots on the selection screen, Vantage appears to be nearly completely modeled, and Newcastle looks to be fully rendered — perhaps next season’s new addition?
If the screenshots weren’t enough, user Legitimate_Chapter82 uploaded an actual gameplay video that showcases a handful of the leaked heroes. Gameplay isn’t very unique between the basic models, and the heroes’ abilities aren’t accompanied by proper animations. Still, it lends credence to the leak, as developer Respawn Entertainment has, of course, not officially announced any of this.
One thing to note is that every leak is watermarked with the handle @KralRindo, which belongs to a popular Apex Legends content creator. Looking at Twitter, Kral vehemently denies being the source of the leaks, saying that the handle was stamped on to deflect blame. If anything, that could add even more credence to the leak, as whoever released this footage would certainly need to put the blame somewhere else. Nine characters are a lot to let slip.
