With Apex Legends’ newest character, Vantage, Respawn wanted to get across the fantasy of a sniper character – a long-range nightmare that can down other players from across the map. The first idea that came to mind was to give her a powerful rifle, akin to the game’s Kraber special weapon.
The problem was that the Kraber is supposed to be hard to come by. Only available in care packages and stocked with limited ammo, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see two of them in a single match. If every single team had a Vantage, suddenly there are potentially 20 Krabers, all popping heads in an instant. It would change the game completely.
“One of the things the Kraber also has is potentially no warning,” Vantage lead designer Chris Winder says. “You could just be sitting somewhere, looking in a direction, and then be down. Or, if it’s a body shot, that’s quite a lot of damage. So we knew we had to do something about that.”
