Apex Legends: Marked – Everything New in Season 30
Apex Legends has entered its 30th season, and Respawn Entertainment is using the milestone to make some surprisingly fundamental changes to the battle royale. Season 30: Marked, which launched on August 4, 2026, focuses less on adding another Legend and more on reworking some of the game’s core systems.
Bloodhound has effectively been rebuilt, World’s Edge has received another major overhaul, energy weapons now function completely differently, loot is becoming harder to perfect, and Respawn is already teasing significant Ranked changes for the seasons ahead.
Here is everything you need to know about the latest season of Apex Legends.
Welcome to Marked
The theme of Season 30 is the hunt.
Respawn describes Marked around the idea of becoming either the predator or the prey, and Bloodhound naturally sits at the center of that concept. Rather than introducing a new Legend this season, Respawn has taken one of the game’s original characters and substantially redesigned how they function.
That philosophy extends beyond Bloodhound. Respawn says it wants Apex to remain a highly competitive battle royale, and Season 30 includes changes to server stability, matchmaking experimentation, weapon progression, loot availability and map design.
Bloodhound Has Essentially Become a New Legend
The headline addition is undoubtedly Bloodhound’s massive rework.
Bloodhound has struggled at higher skill levels, with Respawn noting that the Legend had the lowest pick rate among players in Gold and above. Season 30 attempts to solve that problem by turning Bloodhound from primarily an information-gathering scanner into a much more aggressive hunter.
Their Passive now makes fresh enemy clues significantly easier to follow. Enemies leave a visible red trail near clues, while White Ravens can travel considerably farther and can even be activated remotely by looking at them.
Bloodhound’s Tactical has also become more persistent. Eye of the Allfather initially provides a three-second full-body scan before producing four additional snapshot scans at 1.5-second intervals.
But the biggest change is the Ultimate.
Beast of the Hunt has been replaced by Allfather’s Cloak.
Bloodhound throws down a device that cloaks Legends who enter its area. Players leaving the field can remain cloaked for up to 12 seconds while receiving a 20% movement-speed bonus and threat vision. Attacking, taking damage or using most abilities breaks the cloak, although Bloodhound can use their own abilities without immediately revealing themselves.
The result is a very different Bloodhound.
Instead of simply scanning a building before their teammates attack, Bloodhound can now create opportunities for an entire squad to reposition, escape a third party or initiate an ambush.
World’s Edge Gets Another Major Makeover
One of Apex Legends’ most iconic maps is changing again.
Respawn says World’s Edge was already in a relatively healthy competitive position, so the Season 30 update focuses on improving weaker points of interest while bringing back several locations players have repeatedly requested.
Three major new or redesigned areas headline the update.
East Village replaces Climatizer and incorporates Bloodhound’s tribe into the environment, including a massive Longhouse.
War Camp replaces Survey Camp and creates a more arena-like battleground.
Tree Settlement replaces The Tree and emphasizes vertical movement.
There are also some significant returning locations.
Sorting Factory is back.
The popular POI has been updated with new tunnels, platforms, train cars and ziplines intended to make rotations through the area smoother.
Construction Stacks have also returned to Fragment West, while Big Maude has been moved and merged into Landslide.
For the regular Battle Royale and Ranked rotations, the current maps are World’s Edge, Storm Point and E-District.
Energy Weapons No Longer Need Energy Ammo
One of Season 30’s strangest changes could also become one of its most important.
Energy Ammo has been removed as a lootable ammunition type.
Energy weapons instead have their own internal ammunition stockpile that gradually regenerates. Weapons including the Volt, Havoc, Nemesis, Devotion, L-Star, RE-45 and Triple Take now operate using this system.
Once the weapon’s reserve runs low, players need to give it time to regenerate. Firing or reloading pauses that regeneration.
A weapon regenerates roughly one magazine’s worth of ammunition over 18 seconds in the standard system.
It creates an interesting tradeoff. Carrying an energy weapon no longer requires dedicating valuable backpack slots to ammunition, making it easier to carry grenades, healing items or ammo for a secondary weapon.
However, energy weapons can become much less reliable during prolonged engagements because players cannot simply carry hundreds of rounds.
The system could fundamentally change how players think about their secondary weapon.
Corrupted Attachments Bring Risk and Reward
Season 30 also introduces Corrupted Attachments.
These attachments provide substantial benefits while simultaneously imposing disadvantages.
One example improves a weapon’s rate of fire, reload speed and handling while reducing magazine capacity. That means players aren’t simply looking for the highest-rarity attachment anymore—they have to decide whether the tradeoff actually works with their loadout and playstyle.
Corrupted Attachments are intentionally rare. They can appear in the standard loot pool at a low rate, in Round 2 and Round 3 Care Packages and in high-tier locations such as World’s Edge Vaults.
It is another part of Respawn’s attempt to make looting and weapon progression more meaningful throughout a match.
High-Tier Loot Is Becoming Harder to Find
For years, Apex Legends has gradually made powerful equipment easier to acquire.
Respawn believes that process has gone too far.
Season 30 reduces the spawn rate of high-tier loot across the game’s maps. Purple attachments are rarer, while several specialized loot systems have been removed or reduced.
Respawn specifically wants finding a powerful attachment to feel like an actual upgrade rather than something every squad automatically possesses shortly after landing.
Arsenals are changing as well.
They are now disabled at the beginning of matches and activate alongside EVO Harvesters. There are also fewer Arsenals around individual POIs.
The overall idea is straightforward: players should spend less time constructing a nearly perfect loadout immediately after landing and have more opportunities to improve their equipment throughout the match.
Loba Gets Some Much-Needed Love
All of those loot changes indirectly make Loba more valuable, but Respawn isn’t stopping there.
Her Burglar’s Best Friend Tactical is considerably faster. The bracelet travels farther, its travel time has been reduced and the ability equips more quickly.
Black Market Boutique also received an important buff, with its cooldown dropping from 150 seconds to 120 seconds.
Combined with rarer high-tier equipment, Loba could become considerably more valuable. When other squads are struggling to find Purple attachments, Loba’s ability to vacuum desirable equipment out of the surrounding area becomes much more significant.
Rampart Is Getting Scarier
Rampart is another Legend receiving substantial improvements.
Her Amped Cover now has more health at lower EVO levels, deploys half a second faster and receives additional health on the amped portion of the wall.
Sheila is getting an especially noticeable improvement.
Rampart’s base movement speed while firing or spinning Sheila has increased dramatically, from 70 to 104.
The intention is to make Rampart less dependent on already having the perfect defensive position.
Her Passive also allows her to gain locked Hop-Up progression 50% faster, giving Rampart another weapon-focused advantage.
Valkyrie Comes Back Down to Earth
Not everyone escaped Season 30 with buffs.
Valkyrie has remained a strong and popular Legend, and Respawn is finally trimming some of that power.
Her Missile Swarm’s base damage has fallen from 25 to 15, while the missiles’ attack angle has been changed to make them less capable of diving over tall structures onto enemies.
Skyward Dive also received a 15% reduction in base height.
Several of her Legend Upgrades have been weakened as well, including reducing Eye in the Sky’s through-wall scan range to 100 meters.
Valkyrie remains an incredibly versatile rotational Legend, but Respawn clearly wants other characters to have more opportunities to compete with her.
You Can Finally Volunteer to Be Jumpmaster
One smaller Season 30 feature may become a favorite among experienced players.
Players can now volunteer to become Jumpmaster during character selection.
Once opted in, the game prioritizes players who actually want the responsibility. If multiple teammates volunteer, Jumpmaster is randomly selected between those volunteers. The preference also carries over into future matches until the player opts out.
It is a relatively minor quality-of-life feature, but anyone who has watched their Jumpmaster relinquish responsibility two seconds before the Dropship crosses their preferred POI will probably appreciate it.
Respawn Says the Servers Have Been Improved
Season 30 also includes something players have requested for years: backend improvements.
Respawn says it has strengthened Apex Legends’ servers with the goal of providing better stability, reducing lag and decreasing the likelihood of infamous slow-motion server matches.
The developer acknowledges that the improvements won’t necessarily be equally noticeable for every player or region, but describes the work as a noteworthy improvement to the game’s competitive experience.
Ranked Changes Are Coming—But Not Yet
Perhaps the most interesting announcement isn’t actually part of Season 30.
Respawn has confirmed that Ranked updates are now planned for Season 31, followed by an even larger Ranked update in Season 32.
During Season 29, Respawn experimented with Diamond+ solo-queue-only matchmaking and restrictions preventing premade players separated by more than one Ranked tier from grouping together. The studio says it is still analyzing those tests and intends to publish more information about the results.
Originally, the 2026 roadmap pointed toward Season 32 for the major Ranked overhaul. Respawn has now added Ranked changes to Season 31 as well, meaning competitive players won’t have to wait quite as long for the system to begin evolving.
Original Nintendo Switch Support Has Ended
Season 30 also represents the end of an era for one platform.
As of August 4, Apex Legends is no longer playable on the original Nintendo Switch. EA previously announced that Season 29 would be the final season supported on Nintendo’s 2017 hardware.
The game continues on Nintendo Switch 2 alongside PlayStation, Xbox and PC.
Season 30 Feels Like Apex Preparing for Its Next Era
Marked isn’t built around the usual headline of simply adding another Legend.
Instead, Respawn is tinkering with the machinery underneath Apex Legends.
Bloodhound’s redesign changes one of the game’s oldest characters. Regenerating energy ammunition changes inventory management. Corrupted Attachments complicate weapon progression. Reduced high-tier loot makes powerful equipment more meaningful, while World’s Edge is being reshaped without throwing away the elements competitive players already enjoy.
And perhaps most importantly, Respawn isn’t treating Season 30 as the end of that process.
Ranked updates are planned for Season 31, with another major competitive overhaul expected in Season 32. That makes Marked feel less like an isolated seasonal update and more like the beginning of a broader effort to modernize Apex Legends as the battle royale moves deeper into its seventh year.
For longtime players who have drifted away, Season 30: Marked may be one of the more interesting opportunities in recent memory to see how much Apex has changed.
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