That weapon is Havoc, and, following a brief tease from the developers, it’s live in the game as of now. The trailer above shows this new weapon in action, and it provides details on Apex Legend’s latest gun.
Havoc is an energy rifle, and it strongly resembles a fully automatic assault weapon. It seems to handle similarly to the Devotion machine gun as well.
One major new feature that comes with Havoc is how it supports hop-ups. Hop-ups are rare attachments that you can fit onto a gun in order to boost its capabilities in one form or another. One of these hop-ups, the Turbocharger, speeds up firing time for guns that require a charge, while the Select Fire hop-up changes burst-fire guns to automatic.
Typically, guns in Apex Legends can only take one of these hop-ups, but Havoc supports both of them, though not simultaneously. Turbocharger shortens the time it takes for Havoc to reach its full output capacity, while Select Fire actually lets you change from automatic to firing a single, charged shot. This essentially makes Havoc a gun that covers short, mid, and long-range targets, depending on how you choose to use it.
Providing fans with a small surprise update, right before a large one, suggests that Respawn is committed to making good on its promise that Apex Legends will be a live-service game with plenty of content support and patches to help keep things interesting. That said, it remains to be seen if the Havoc will become a mainstay of many players’ arsenals.