Ash, the cold, calculating android (sorry, Simulacrum) lass from Titanfall 2's shifting factory level will be Apex Legends' next champion, as confirmed by a new Stories from the Outlands trailer posted today.
For the last week, the Apex Legends twitter account has been blessing me, personally, with a Horizon-focused trilogy of comics that sees our Scottish space mum attempting to "wake up" Ash, believing her to be a long-lost pal. Unfortunately it turns out Ash was Dr Reid, the assistant who punted her into a black hole—a realisation neither party seems particularly excited by.
In the video, we see Dr. Reid's transformation into the simulacrum Ash, and a long internal struggle as the two vie for control of their physical form. We see her history with Horizon's son Newton, her impalement and reconstruction following the Pathfinder short, and her ultimately being crushed by BT-7274 in the Titanfall 2 campaign.
Being pummelled by giant metal hands can't keep a good simulacrum down, mind, and Ash has been a persistent presence in Apex over the past year. She appeared at the end of the Season 5 quest, before hitting Apex to run the arenas in Season 9. The short wraps up with week's arc with Ash, now awoken, putting her human past in a tidy mental box ready to enter the battle royale proper.
While Ash's ability set remains unconfirmed, leakers speculate that she'll be able to phase-dash through walls and objects, echoing her Ronin Titan from Tf2. That said, I'm a little disappointed to be dipping straight back into the Titanfall well. Valkyrie, launched earlier this year, felt like a good way to pay homage to previous games while offering something entirely new.
We'll find out her full moveset closer to the next season's release next month, though we now know that Season 11 will be titled Escape, and feature the return of the fan-favourite CAR SMG from Titanfall. It also sounds like we'll be getting a new map, rumoured to be set on a tropical island.
The full launch trailer for Apex Legends: Escape will drop on October 21, with the season itself likely to launch in the first week of November.
