With the new Chaos Theory collection event, Apex Legends has received a huge update that has added a Caustic town takeover, a new LTM, lots of balance changes, and a new Heat Shield item. This new deployable item, which protects players from ring damage, also lives in a new inventory slot known as the survival slot.

The Heat Shield is a permanent item in the Apex Legends loot pool now, and it will stick around, along with the survival slot, even after the Chaos Theory event has ended. Other balancing changes include a major rebalance for Caustic, which also partly affected Bangalore, a new shield-regenerating passive for Wattson, and a nerf for the Mastiff shotgun.

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Heat Shields are a large deployable item that can be thrown a short distance. Once the Heat Shield lands on the ground, it creates a large dome that shelters all players inside from damage from the ring and ring flares only. As the ring touches the Heat Shield, nearby players will notice the circular health indicator, which ticks down as the ring deals damage. When it reaches zero, the Heat Shield will be destroyed, and players will begin taking ring damage as normal.

It is important to note that the Heat Shield takes damage from the ring in the same way that players do. For Heat Shields, this means that they become less effective as matches go on and the ring’s damage increases. Furthermore, they are not bulletproof barriers like Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection and only give players temporary safety from getting cooked by the ring.

When holding a Heat Shield, players can see a light curved line with a small dome on the end which shows how far the item can be thrown and where it will land. The most obvious use for a Heat Shield is for players to throw it ahead while sprinting through the ring to create a temporary safe area to heal up. It can also be used to protect players using Replicators or Respawn Beacons that have been taken by the ring.

Players can find the Heat Shield in the new survival slot inventory space. It is worth mentioning that Mobile Respawn Beacons can also be stored in the survival slot, but they do not stack, so players can only hold one beacon at a time. To quickly access a survival slot item, console players, including new Switch players, need to hold left on the d-pad – PC players can obviously bind their own key – which will cause their character to pull out the item, ready to be used.

While Chaos Theory and the new Ring Fury LTM are active, all players will start with one stack of two Heat Shield items in their survival slot. Although they are also available to find in Ranked, players do not start with any. The added carnage caused by the ring flares in the Ring Fury LTM will mean players will definitely have to use the shields a fair amount, which gives Respawn plenty of data to further adjust how they work.

As previously mentioned, even once the Ring Fury LTM has ended, the Heat Shield will still be in the Apex Legends loot pool for players to find and equip in matches. It can always be found on the ground but can also be crafted at a Replicator for 50 Crafting Materials when available.

Chaos Theory has also brought with it plenty of new cosmetic items to unlock and buy, including Bangalore’s Cold Steel heirloom set, which players can earn during the event or buy later with heirloom shards.

Apex Legends is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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