There were some discreet changes introduced in the Chaos Theory event update in Apex Legends that were not revealed in the patch notes, significantly affecting both Caustic and Bangalore’s abilities.
While very different Legends, both in character and ability, Bangalore and Caustic have one thing in common: their smoke.
Technically, Caustic is actually a poison gas, but the impact of effectively blinding opponents is the same. Or, at least, it was the same – before the last update on March 9.
This was not mentioned anywhere in the patch notes, but the developers have confirmed that a big change has been made to the smoke effect caused by the abilities of these Legends.
Bangalore smoke has taken a hit in this update.
Smoke / Gas Nerves in Apex Legends
As players took to trying out the new patch, some were quick to notice that the smoke effects were much easier to see. Essentially, the gas and smoke looked a lot “thinner” than before.
A good example of this is shown in the clip below @psyycheout – not only does the gas deal less damage, it is also much easier to see through.
Changing the caustic gas cartridge pic.twitter.com/Nep1DLCvMt
– 𝘚𝘕𝘌𝘈𝘒𝘠 🔞 (@psyycheout) March 9, 2021
At first, players thought this might be an unintentional bug, but Respawn developer Eric Hewitt has confirmed that he intentionally reduced the number of particle effects for Caustic, Bangalore, and Gibraltar abilities.
FX particle count was lowered for Caustic Gas (tac and ult), Bangalore Smoke and Gibraltar ult
– Eric Hewitt / Ghost (@ GH057ayame) March 5, 2021
This reduced particle density leads to increased visibility through the smoke caused by these abilities, making them much less effective.
No reasoning was given for the change, which is particularly surprising for Bangalore – generally considered one of the less powerful legends, relatively.
Caustic, meanwhile, was hit by many successive nerves. This might be good news for players who found it frustrating to play against, but for Caustic Main it will be bitterly disappointing.
So far, this change still hasn’t been added to the latest patch notes.