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  • A new progression system for players will be added in Season 17 Arsenal called Weapon Mastery.
  • Players can earn experience by using weapons while playing Apex Legends game modes.
  • Leveling up weapons unlocks challenges and by completing these challenges players can earn exclusive cosmetic rewards.

Apex Legends is adding a massive new feature for Season 17 Arsenal that will keep players engaged for seasons to come — a brand new progression system called Weapon Mastery. With a focus on using weapons and mastering them, each one will come with its own set of challenges and rewards.

What is Weapon Mastery?

The concept of a Weapon Mastery System or Weapon Progression is nothing new to FPS and is something most gamers might associate with the Call of Duty franchise. The basic idea is simple, the more you use a weapon, the better you get at it. As you use that weapon in game modes it accrues experience points and levels up.

The level-up could do a number of things such as increase the handling, accuracy and other stats for the gun. Though we have no indication that that will be the case in Apex Legends Season 17. But it can unlock additional rewards and challenges for you, which will be the case in Apex Legends' new season Arsenal.

What are the Rewards for Weapon Mastery Progression?

Apex Legends' biggest draw for rewards has always been cosmetics, such as weapon trackers, banner frames, gun skins and charms. It remains to be seen if anything new might come out of the weapon mastery system, but you can expect the rewards to pertain to the guns themselves.

Some possible rewards would be trackers for specific weapons such as accuracy with the R-99 or headshot kills with the Sentinels. Developers also teased the idea of legendary trackers for your character card, something we’ve never seen before. A legendary tracker could have some kind of animation on it which would make it highly sought after by players.

Developers also said that the final reward for fully mastering a weapon would be a legendary weapon skin. While there is no confirmation on this, there have been some weapon recolors floating around in the Apex content creator community of past battle pass reactive skins. Depending on how challenging it is to complete a mastery track, recolors of reactive weapons would be a great final reward for mastering one.

Weapon Mastery System Challenges?

What kind of challenges can players expect to run into while mastering their weapons? Developers said that players would get a challenge every 20 levels. But didn’t give anything specific beyond the suggestion that a final Kraber challenge could be something like getting a 360 Kraber no-scope kill.

Challenges will likely start out with objectives you’re familiar with from weekly challenges, such as dealing X amount or damage, or getting X amount of kills. They will probably get more advanced and difficult as you progress and be specific to weapons. One such example could be to deal a very high amount of damage with a Mastiff or Peacekeeper in only a few shots, or under a certain time limit.

The developers also called this a long-term progression system and compared it to the level progression system. Long-time players will remember that for a time, levels in Apex Legend were capped at 500. Eventually, Apex added another 500 levels to accounts, but players who reached the original cap would restart at level 1 with a different color icon, reminiscent of Call of Duty’s prestige system.

More on Season 17 Arsenal

It remains to be seen exactly what the Weapon Mastery System will be and how long this progression system can keep players engaged, but it’s a step in the right direction and something players have been asking for. For more information on Apex Legends Season 17 Arsenal, you can check out the patch notes.

We also have more information on the newest Legend Ballistic, updated map changes to World’s Edge, an overhauled ranked system, a revamped and upgraded firing range, a new survival item called the Evac Tower and more.

Apex Legend’s Season 17 Arsenal launches on May 9th.