Apex Legends Season 20 completely removes the Replicator as we know it

Apex Legends' 20th season, aptly called Breakout, is looking to shake up the Titanfall-based battle royale with some major gameplay changes. The game has been going for 5 years now, which in live-service years is a very, very long time, so it comes as no surprise that the devs are keen to play around with the meta lest the gameplay turns stale.

Apex Legends is no stranger to overhauls, with legends like Revenant receiving a complete Rework back in Season 18, and Season 20 has already seen changes to its ranked system as well as its armour evo system. But one of the biggest passive changes comes in the complete removal of the Replicator as we know it.

Developers Respawn have confirmed that the Replicator will no longer provide weapons and hop-ups as it has done in past seasons and will instead be catered more towards Support items like Medkits and Shield Batteries, as well as teammates' banners and ammo. They have also removed the need to scurry around collecting harvesting materials, as the new Replicators will be completely free to use.

However, there's a catch. The Replicators can only be used once per match, so once you've made your selection, it's exhausted. So you'll have to choose between those ever-valuable Shield Batteries, your fallen comrades' respawn banners or some much-needed ammo.

At the very least, once you've made that tough decision, your loot will be available almost instantaneously, as the craft time has been dramatically reduced. So no more waiting around in the storm while your supplies are being created.

This change likely serves to counter the zone-camping exploit Apex Legends saw a fair bit of in recent seasons. Now that players can't craft 10 Medkits as they sit in the storm while the rest of the lobby dukes it out, these exploiters will have to find a new way to skew the system.

Season 20 of Apex Legends is sure to shake the foundations of the game, and hopefully in an interesting way. We're looking forward to seeing how the meta alters in Breakout, and for more on the new changes, be sure to check out everything we know about the changes to ranked, as well as the new legend upgrades.