With the launch of Apex Legends Season 5, Respawn has eschewed any new weapons to instead bring something totally new; Season Quests. The first of these will be The Broken Ghost, a major quest with numerous facets which will be active throughout Season 5. At last, following the release of today’s gameplay trailer, Respawn has revealed details for how this quest will work.
Apex Legends Season 5 Quest: The Broken Ghost
“Season 5 of Apex Legends is a big one!” writes Respawn; “It’s a season about adventure, digging up the past, and change – and the translocating thief Loba is an agent of that change. It’s her misadventures under Kings Canyon that caused the destruction of Skull Town, her vendetta that brings her to the games now, and her relentless drive that will push all the Legends into a new endeavour: our first Season Quest.”
In essence, The Broken Ghost is a quest to locate the nine component parts of a particular artefact. However, this search has itself been broken up into various components. Players will be able to collect daily Treasure Packs in order to unlock special weekly Hunt missions, where they will face AI enemies alone or with a squad. If they succeed, they will retrieve one of the nine pieces of the artefact and progress the story of the quest. Once all nine pieces are uncovered, Respawn teases that players may; “uncover a secret that the Outlands may not be ready for.”
The Broken Ghost: Daily Treasure Packs
The first part of The Broken Ghost quest are the Daily Treasure Packs. These special boxes can be found in any competitive match in Apex Legends, including Duos, Trios, Ranked, and any Limited-Time Modes that might be active. Typically, they will drop as loot from within standard loot containers, and you’ll immediately collect it on pickup. The contents of the pack will become available once you return to the Lobby, post-match. Although you can come across multiple Treasure Packs in a single day, you can only pick up one per day.
Overall, there are a grand total of 45 different Daily Treasure Packs. Each will contain a different reward, which could be Battle Pass XP, Apex Packs, or Crafting Materials. In addition, every fifth Pack you collect will give you the option to play a Weekly Hunt mission. Note that if you open a container and find a Daily Treasure Pack, but you’ve already picked one up that day, you can ping its location for one of your squadmates to collect instead.
Finally, Respawn has confirmed that Treasure Packs will be available for direct purchase if players want to catch up. They will cost 25 Apex Coins each. However, players won’t simply be able to buy all 45 Packs immediately. You will only ever be able to purchase up to the previous day’s number of Packs (according to the limit of 1 per day). i.e. if you’re on Day 12 of Apex Legends Season 5, and you have yet to pick up any Packs during the Season, you will be able to buy up to 11 Treasure Packs.
The Broken Ghost: Weekly Hunts
Weekly Hunts are a much larger part of the new Season Quest in Apex Legends Season 5. Once you’ve acquired access to one of the Hunts by collecting 5 Treasure Packs, you can set out on the mission alone or with a squad. Instead of being a standard match against other players, the Weekly Hunts are independent PvE missions set in the Kings Canyon at Night map. You’ll be dropped in by an aircraft, then must reach a target site to recover one of the artefact pieces. Once you have it, you’ll need to escape.
The enemies which you’ll face on the Weekly Hunts are the same Prowlers which appear in Bloodhound’s Trials; the Town Takeover added during The Old Ways event last season. Note that if you head into a Weekly Hunt alone, you will get a small number of respawns. However, head in with a squad and you won’t get any (although squadmates can pick each other up). When you successfully complete a Weekly Hunt, you’ll unlock an exclusive Weapon Charm reward. More importantly, you’ll also unlock the next chapter of The Broken Ghost, moving forward the Quest narrative.
Note that all players will get the Hunt’s rewards if you play in a squad. However, players will only get the rewards if they have themselves unlocked access to the Hunt. For instance, if you play in a squad of 3, but one of your squadmates hasn’t yet unlocked access to that Hunt, they won’t receive rewards for its completion.
The first Weekly Hunt will become available to play on the 19th of May. (Providing you’ve collected at least five Treasure Packs, of course.) After that first Hunt releases, subsequent Hunt missions will release on a weekly basis. All Hunts will be fully replayable throughout the season once they become available; they won’t cease to be playable when the next Hunt releases.
The Broken Ghost: Ongoing Story
According to Respawn, The Broken Ghost is a narrative unlike anything told in Apex Legends before. Written in weekly serialized chapters, the narrative will offer players much more of a look into the lore of the game than ever before. “See a side of the Legends’ lives you’ve never seen before,” explains Respawn’s Tom Casiello; “outside of the Games! Alliances will be formed, friendships will be tested, vendettas will be born, and when the dust settles, nothing will be the same again in a mystery that has far-reaching consequences for them all”. The Broken Ghost Prologue will be available to view in the new Quest tab of the Apex Legends menu when Season 5 launches on the 12th of May.