A developer at new season was revealed earlier this year, most of the fans' attention was focused on the new 3v3 Arenas mode. However, the new Bocek Bow piqued the interest of sharpshooters looking for a new challenge.
Like with most recent seasons, the Legacy update brought a new comic series that unlocks over time. So far, “The Legacy Antigen” has centered around a dangerous plant outbreak on Olympus, the floating map introduced in Season 7. During the course of the comic, the Legends team up to try to find a cure to the poisonous plants released on the floating city. While most of the comics focus on only a few characters, this series s most of the game’s Legends on one mission, similar to the Apex Legends comic published by Dark Horse Comics. Fans believed the final image of the comic’s most recent chapter revealed a new weapon, but it looks like it was an earlier design of the newly introduced bow.
In a series of Tweets, Respawn Entertainment Senior Writer Tom Casiello confirmed that Apex Legends' Bocek Bow was once conceived as a crossbow rather than a traditional compound bow. Casiello clarified this to settle the expectations of fans, who read the recent in-game comic and believed a new crossbow was headed to the game. The deadline for the comic hit before the new season was set to arrive, so the game’s comic artists designed the Bocek as a crossbow before the weapon was finalized as a compound bow.
It seems that the new marksman weapon went through some design overhauls before settling on a bow, which was eventually nerfed. The final image in the comic's newest chapter show’s Loba readying a crossbow, which was intended to be the Bocek. It’s possible that Respawn Entertainment initially planned on making the weapon a crossbow during the concept stages of the Legacy season, but changed its design to better fit the game’s action.
It’s interesting to imagine how a crossbow would affect the gameplay of Apex Legends, especially in the fast-paced Arenas mode. Players were quick to adopt the Bocek bow when its powerful shots provided a good incentive to stay back and deal massive damage. After the recent nerf, it seems that players aren’t as eager to pick up the marksman weapon. It’s likely that a crossbow would have dealt similar damage, but its reload animation probably would have yielded an entirely different style of weapon. It will be interesting to see if “The Legacy Antigen” or future comics will highlight some discrepancies between concept art and the final versions of Apex Legends’ assets.
Source: Tom Casiello/Twitter
