When Ballistic’s image accidentally leaked online, many were quick to point out that theApex Legendscharacter seemed to be holding asmart pistol fromTitanfall. This is only half true. His tactical is called Whistler and sees him use modified smart pistol tech to fire a bullet that can track targets, potentially overheating their weapon if they continue to use it for too long. It’s a powerful tactical, one that shifted him from a weapons-based support legend to a full-blown assault character in development, but it was once something else entirely—a turret.
Game Rant recently spoke with narrative lead Sam Gill and senior legend designer John Ellenton about how Ballistic changed from his initial concept to his release. Gill revealed that, at one point,Ballistic was basically Batman story-wise. Ellenton spoke about the attempts at making Ballistic a support character inApex Legends,revealing how and why certain things were changed.
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Respawn set out with the goal of making Ballistic a pure support legend built around supporting his allies through weapons. Some of this utility can still be seen inhis kit, particularly Ballistic’s ultimate ability. Prior iterations of his various abilities, however, included ways to get better weapon attachments, passives that would provide info on enemy guns, zones that would ping enemies, and a tactical turret. The big change to his gameplay inApex Legendscame when Respawn settled on the Whistler tactical, which pushed him from a support legend to an assault character. As Ellenton said,
He still has the utility and the support aspect in his ultimate, but his tactical drove him into a more aggressive playstyle. We just couldn’t find a balance of pure support by buffing weapons that didn’t end up feeling like it was more offensive and more aggressive.
When Ballistic had a turret, he was able to set it down and it would shoot at players. However, it wasn’t a lot of damage—it wasn’t designed to kill players but distract them. While some player abilities can damage and kill players, the potential counterplay (as seen inFuse’sApex Legendsabilities) is an important aspect. The problem with this turret is that players would pursue the gun noises just to find the turret, allowing the actual threat to get a jump on them. This understandably created a lot of frustration because gun sounds couldn’t be a reliable indicator anymore. He said it was a better decoy than Mirage and much deadlier at that, with Ellenton revealing it was removed because it wasn’t healthy for the game:
It was a decoy that fought back, even though it wasn’t doing much damage. You were just taking damage and hearing a gun from something that wasn’t a player. It was just not very well received, and we didn’t think it was healthy for the game.
Now, Respawn prefers to launch a new character inApex Legendsstrongly and fine-tune from there. He may not have a turret, but he has a third gun, a smart bullet that can disable his rivals, and an ultimate that buffs him and his allies. It’s a strong spot, and many fans will flock to him on day one. Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see how he settles into the game when season 17 launches.
Apex Legendsis available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
