Apex Legends: Cipher is here – Akimbo Wingman, Strongholds and Legend bans in Ranked

Season 31 of Apex Legends goes by the name Cipher and it starts on November 3rd. It brings a brand new weapon combo, airdropped Strongholds, a long list of Ranked changes and a proper rework for Crypto. Here’s a readable rundown of everything in the patch.

Akimbo Wingman

The Wingman’s firepower is being doubled. Pick up a second Wingman and you automatically go Akimbo – a brutal close and mid-range option you’ll find in ground loot or on Heavy Arsenals.

• Ammo type changed from Sniper Ammo to Heavy Ammo (it now takes Heavy Magazines and spawns on Heavy Ammo Arsenals)
• Base damage decreased from 50 to 45
• Loot a second Wingman to automatically enter Akimbo

Akimbo Mode itself works like this:

• Headshot multiplier drops to 1.25x (headshot damage: 56)
• Slightly increased rate of fire
• Increased reload time and increased recoil
• Magazine size is doubled
• Firing makes each gun shoot one after the other in a quick burst; holding the trigger releases subsequent bursts

Strongholds

Alongside Care Packages and Replicators, a new structure now airdrops onto the map around the mid game. Strongholds are locked bunker-style buildings packed with valuable loot – you capture them by controlling the zone around them, and the capturing team gets a level up.

• Airdrop timing was updated: 2x Care Package during Round 1 closing, 1x Care Package and 1x Stronghold during Round 2 closing
• Strongholds crush (and kill) players and objects underneath them on landing
• On landing they deploy dynamic cover – up to 4 indestructible barriers and 2 Hardlight frames if there’s enough space
• Until captured they cannot be entered, looted by Loba, or breached by Alter

Capture rules:

• Progress only ticks when exactly one team is alive in the Capture Zone
• More than one team in the zone means the capture is Contested
• Progress is globally shared and never decays
• More teammates in the zone means faster progress
• Whichever team stands in the zone at 100% wins the Stronghold

Once captured, the doors and roof hatch open and every living member of the team gets a Level Up. Inside you’ll find 1x Care Package Weapon, 3x Gold Guns, 3x Amps and 2x Corrupted Attachments.

Ranked: Legend bans and scoring adjustments

Legend Bans

In Diamond+ matches you can now vote on which Legend you’d like banned at the start of each match. Every player may request one Legend; when the timer ends, all requests are tallied and a Legend’s chance of being banned equals its share of the requests. If Wraith gets 80% of the lobby’s requests, Wraith has an 80% chance on the first randomized pick. The system currently bans 2 Legends.

If fewer than 4 unique Legends get requested, the system pulls from the previous week’s most played Legends and adds 1 request to each, so there are always at least 4 candidates. After the bans are locked in, everyone moves to Legend selection with the banned picks greyed out.

Scoring for wide matches

Two new Ranked Match Types account for unfairly matched squads – expect them mostly outside peak hours. Respawn has been testing matchmaking for a while now and we covered the earlier Ranked matchmaking results in a separate article.

• Challenger Match – entry cost discounted by 30% when your Squad Tier is 2+ tiers below the Lobby Tier
• Goliath Match – entry cost increased by 50% when your Squad Tier is 2+ tiers above the Lobby Tier

You’ll be told about it on the Waiting for Players screen and when you leave the dropship. Your Squad Tier is the average RP of the squad, except premade teammates all count as the highest RP in their group. If a teammate never connects, your Squad Tier drops by one full tier. The Lobby Tier is the median of all Squad Tiers.

Ranked UI

• Reworked Waiting for Players screen: Squad Tier, Lobby Tier, current Entry Cost, a pip showing your squad’s exact spot in the Match Distribution, your full team listed before everyone connects, plus Match Type info
• New “Ranked” tab in the inventory menu with squad and match info, relevant RP goals (covering entry cost, promoting, replacing your lowest ladder score, exiting demotion protection) and RP scoring rules – the inventory button still opens the “Inventory” tab
• New Matchmaking Tier label in the lobby – the rank the game is attempting to match you at
• RP info added to the kill feed, including RP per kill and a message with Placement RP when a squad is fully eliminated
• Net RP UI is now red when negative, white when positive, with a small animation and sound when you cross into the green

Ranked Ladders arrive later this split: Ladder 1 (11/10–11/15), Ladder 2 (11/17–11/22), Ladder 3 (11/24–11/29), Ladder 4 (12/1–12/6) and Ladder 5 (12/8–12/13).

Legend changes

Crypto

The goal is to keep what makes Crypto unique while pushing him to use the drone aggressively instead of camping in it.

Passive: Ally.MoveTo() (speed boost toward teammates) is now part of the base kit, with the boost slightly reduced.

Tactical:

• The drone now runs on a battery instead of lasting forever – 25s of flight before it gets recalled
• Recall takes 6s, after which the drone can be redeployed with no cooldown
• Increased handling and speed while in the drone, plus a faster transition when entering it
• Enemies in line of sight can be scanned and marked; marking has a 4s cooldown
• Marked enemies stay tracked for 8s even if the drone is recalled or destroyed, and you can’t re-mark an already marked target
• The base scan zone is now 360 degrees instead of camera view only, and no longer scans lootbins and doors
• In drone mode the shoot button manually fires the mark

Ultimate:

• While piloting, trigger the EMP with the Ultimate button on PC or Y on console (shoot is now for marking)
• Out of pilot mode, the EMP triggers on the deployed drone
• If Crypto has an available drone that isn’t destroyed or already out in the world, activating the Ultimate deploys it and fires the EMP after a short delay
• With line of sight the EMP deals full shield damage and a heavier slow; without it, 50 damage and a lighter slow
• Crypto no longer damages himself with his own EMP

Upgrades: LVL 2 Ally.MoveTo() is replaced by Got Eyes On You (marks last 4s longer), LVL 3 Hackathon is replaced by Charged Up (10s longer drone battery).

Lifeline

• Passive: D.O.C. now heals Lifeline while she’s gliding
• Tactical cooldown reduced from 25s to 15s
• LVL 2 BattPack replaced by Enhanced Radio (moved down from LVL 3)
• LVL 2 Improved Flight gives better glide handling and increased duration
• LVL 3 Enhanced Radio replaced by Ultimate Cooldown (60 second reduction)
• LVL 3 Tactical Cooldown replaced by Revive Shield (D.O.C. deploys a shield while reviving)

Revenant

• Tactical cooldown reduced from 20s to 15s and charge time sped up
• Ultimate cooldown reduced from 180s to 150s
• LVL 2 Ultimate Cooldown replaced by Ever Lasting (10s Ult extension on knock)
• LVL 3 Tactical Cooldown replaced by Silence (landing from a Tactical leap releases an AOE pulse that silences enemies)
• LVL 3 Agile Assassin replaced by No Escape (Tactical refreshes when an enemy is marked by the Passive)

Loba

• Tactical cooldown increased from 25s to 30s
• Ultimate cooldown increased from 120s to 150s

Axle (from the Oct. 1st, 2026 hotfix)

These changes already went live earlier – we wrote about the Axle nerfs when the hotfix dropped.

• Passive: sliding lateral control reduced by 50%
• Tactical: sliding lateral control reduced by 25% for Nitro Gate users, increased aim assist disabled under Nitro Gate, initial push speed down from 700 to 650
• Ultimate: a Kickstart drone that locks on immediately after deployment causes a much smaller knock-up, max knock-up magnitude down from 700 to 650, max drone chase time down from 10s to 8s

Weapons and attachments

Care Package rotation: the L-Star returns to the floor and the Akimbo Mozambique moves into the Care Package.

All burst fire weapons: the Prowler PDW, Hemlok Burst AR, Nemesis Burst AR and Akimbo Wingman now support tap fire queuing in auto fire bursts.

• Akimbo Mozambique [Care Package] – damage per pellet up from 17 to 18, decreased reload speed, tightened blast pattern, added Executioner Hop-Up (heals 15 shields per second), stockpile 80 (40 per gun), Wildcard stockpile 110 (55 per gun)
• EVA-8 Auto – Double Tap Trigger removed, Disruptor Rounds added
• Hemlok Burst AR – Elite variant removed from all modes, Automatic and Breach Charge firing modes and the integrated silencer removed, Burst and Single modes return (21 body / 29 headshot), holding the trigger releases subsequent bursts
• L-STAR EMG [floor loot] – base damage down from 21 to 19, shots until overheat down from 28 to 22, base stockpile down from 168 to 88, clip recharge time down from 22s to 18s, Redline Hop-Up removed
• Nemesis Burst AR – increased vertical recoil
• Peacekeeper – increased rate of fire, shotgun bolts now improve both rechamber rate and rate of fire
• Prowler Burst PDW – increased recoil and Selectfire Hop-Up removed, a targeted nerf aimed at its range so it stays deadly up close but less reliable at distance

Attachments: the Corrupted Rapid Sniper Stock has its rate of fire multiplier reduced from 1.2x to 1.1x on the G7 Scout, Longbow DMR and Triple Take.

Locked Hop-Ups: Double Tap Trigger removed from the EVA-8 Auto, Disruptor Rounds added to the EVA-8 Auto (375 points to unlock), Selectfire Receiver removed from the Prowler Burst PDW. If you follow weapon balance closely, we also covered the earlier round of weapon exploit fixes.

Maps

This patch rolls out 99 targeted quality of life fixes across the map rotation, with a heavy focus on Storm Point, Olympus and World’s Edge – smoother collisions, patched geo holes and permanently sealed rat spots.

Pubs and Ranked rotation: Storm Point, E-District Night, Broken Moon.

Mixtape (11/3/26 – 1/5/27): TDM on Thunderdome, Fragment and Skull Town; Control on Production Yard, Barometer and Thunderdome; Gun Run on Skull Town, Wattson Pylon and Monument.

E-District Night adjustments:

• Balanced silhouette contrast – deep shadows lifted for much better enemy visibility in low-light zones
• A lot more localized practical light fixtures so the map feels naturally lit
• Bigger budget for shadow-casting lights, grounding characters and structures more realistically
• Reworked color correction sharpens micro-contrast while keeping the cyberpunk mood without blind spots
• Streamlined building and advertisement panel coloration to cut visual noise

Global rendering and readability updates apply to all maps: a comprehensive lighting and material pass, standardized luminance values, a rebuilt atmospheric fog system, slower auto-exposure adaptation to limit drastic brightness shifts, and rebalanced lighting grids for better GPU performance.

Wildcard

The Wild Card delivery tested during the Ascended Hunt Event is now permanent – and Wildcard has seen plenty of experiments lately, from Street Fighter 6 to cross-play tests.

• Wild Cards are granted at the beginning of Rounds 1, 2 and 3 via a selection UI at the top of your HUD
• Replicators have been removed from Wildcard

Rotation: November 3rd – November 9th, 2026: District Wildcard and Broken Moon Wildcard. December 1st, 2026 – January 5th, 2027: Olympus Wildcard, District Wildcard and Broken Moon Wildcard.

Bug fixes

• Players can no longer bunny hop during the Death Box respawn interaction
• Mirage’s decoys no longer stay floating in place when deployed during skydiving
• Crypto can no longer use weapons in the Olympus Boxing Ring
• Caustic’s Nox Gas Traps can be placed properly in Somers University
• Fixed the Sling keeping the Locked Hop-Up benefit after Ballistic’s Tempest expires
• Mad Maggie now receives the speed boost from Corrupted Agile Stock
• Various minor Alter bug fixes
• Olympus: fixed players being unable to climb the edges of the second floor building in the center of Estates
• World’s Edge: fixed a cargo bot flight path clipping into the buildings at Sorting Factory
• Over 35 rat/hiding spots resolved across all maps
• Over 15 instances of Alter’s abilities clipping players out of bounds resolved

Engine and disk space

• Cubemap textures are now streamable, lowering GPU memory usage
• The Season 30.0 and 31.0 patches are larger than usual because existing textures were recompressed
• Compared to Season 29.0, disk usage drops by roughly 30 GB on most platforms and about 17 GB on Switch 2 – overall install size shrinks after the patch and future patch sizes should return to normal

Quality of life

• World’s Edge: extra cover along the outside walls at War Camp
• World’s Edge: a gap added in the railings at the bottom of Construction Stacks so knocked players don’t get trapped on the first floor
• Respawn Dropship attenuation distance adjusted to better signal how close a respawning team is
• The Weapon Playground now shows what a weapon looks like with a specific optic equipped
• Street Fighter Deathbox now works on certain Heirlooms (it was broken on Hadoken and Horizon’s Heirloom)
• The Weapon HUD shows the correct ammo count after respawning via deathbox
• Fixed the game mode switching from Wildcard to Ranked on its own
• Fixed Text to Speech on Xbox One
• Random Favorite Legend skin selection now actually randomizes
• Heirlooms with bright visual effects can no longer be seen through Cloaking abilities
• Fixed a crash to desktop when a Bluetooth audio device disconnects or switches mid-match
• Fixed Steam achievements not unlocking after winning matches as support or recon legends
• Fixed the challenges page layout on 21:9 ultrawide resolutions
• Fixed zipline interaction prioritizing the wrong zipline when several were in range

For more context on how the Akimbo Wingman and Strongholds were designed, Respawn published its Designer’s Notes, and the longer-term Ranked plans sit in the Ranked Roadmap blog. If you want to keep up with everything else happening in the game, we collect it all in Apex Legends news.

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