Developers from Respawn Entertainment have commented that Gibraltar and Caustic will be the last characters in Apex Legends with a large frame put into the game. Apex is unique among battle royale experiences in that it uses a character roster similar to hero shooters like Overwatch. Whereas players of PUBG or Fortnite simply choose a skin and dive in, Apex players consider whether they want to have a healing robot by their side or the ability to place jump pads wherever they go.
Both of the larger Legends were a part of the launch day roster, with Caustic being a paid add-on and Gibraltar a free hero anyone can play as. Because of their larger frame (and the larger hitbox that comes with that), both characters have a passive perk that lets them survive more damage and avoid the slowing effects of taking fire. A similar perk to make characters harder to hit exists for smaller heroes like Wraith, who is generally considered one of the top choices on the whole roster. Since Apex's launch, the characters added to the game have all had a slender frame similar to other launch day heroes like Bangalore or Bloodhound, and few have needed an additional perk for balance purposes.
Many players have wondered why Respawn gave up on one of the unique features of its hero roster, and a developer has now revealed exactly what the team is thinking. Speaking in response to a Reddit comment, Senior Game Designer Daniel Klein admitted that the choice to have different sizes of heroes was considered a mistake internally because of the hitbox imbalances. "We created a whole bunch of extra work for ourselves for really no gameplay benefit." Furthermore, Klein says that if it were possible to squeeze the two bigger Legends into smaller bodies and alter all their cosmetics, it's something the team would do.
The next hero to join the Apex Games is cut from the same mold as recent additions, putting this mindset on display. While the explosive-happy Fuse can pull out a huge rocket launcher to take out enemy squads, he's doesn't need extra bulk to lug it around King's Canyon. Much like the last several heroes, he looks like a regular bloke, albeit one with an eyepatch and a robotic arm. While Apex has introduced a diverse range of playable characters (including several who would be hard to classify as a human), there's little chance that the team will stretch things to include something like OddJob from Goldeneye.
The hero shooter aspect of Apex Legends is something that really fights against the battle royale genre, which is more about precise shooting than big plays with character abilities. The game's unique mechanics are one of the big reasons why players are drawn to the game season after season, but developers at Respawn are seemingly running into the types of issues that kept other games away from this type of design in the first place. It doesn't seem like Respawn is going to significantly change its existing heroes, but players should expect more variance in hero abilities rather than their shapes and sizes going forward.
Apex Legends is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: Reddit