Season 4: Assimilation sees Revenant join Apex Legends as the game's twelfth playable character. Somehow managing to surpass Caustic as the creepiest legend with his death-obsessed quips, Revenant is a terrifying offensive threat that specializes in aggressive plays. Alongside Revenant, Assimilation adds the Sentinel sniper rifle, World's Edge map changes, character buffs (including a big one for Bloodhound), weapon adjustments (one of which screws over the Havoc), over 100 battle pass rewards and plenty more.
In the following guide, we go over Revenant's three abilities and detail how you can best use them to draw out the legend's full potential. If you're jumping into Apex Legends for the first time in Season 4, don't worry. You've certainly missed a lot (plenty changed in Wild Frontier, Battle Charge, and Meltdown), but we have articles and videos to help get you up to speed--just check out the Apex Legends News pinbox, below.
General Overview Of Revenant
Once a human and the greatest hitman for the Mercenary Syndicate, the simulacrum known as Revenant desires nothing more than to take revenge on his former masters for turning him into a living machine without a will of his own. With a glitch in his programming preventing the Syndicate from bringing him back under their control, the higher-ups within the organization decided the best way to escape Revenant's terrifying grasp was to throw the synthetic nightmare into the Apex Games, where his lust for murder helps the company market the machine as the latest villain to join the blood sport.
As you can probably surmise, Revenant's backstory translates into an incredibly aggressive legend to play. Your entire strategy for playing as Revenant can be summarized in one word: attack. While playing as Revenant, you should always be on the hunt for another squad to kill and the first one to enter the fray once you've found a target.
This may mean you're also one of the first in your team to be downed in a fight, so you have to be sure that you're dealing as much damage as possible before that happens. If you prefer looting for supplies on the outskirts and slowly moving in on squads only once the circle is small enough, Revenant may not be the right legend for you. You need to be as bloodthirsty as Revenant is in order to succeed with him.
How Revenant's Abilities Work
Passive Ability: Stalker - You crouch-walk faster and can climb higher than other Legends.
Revenant's passive ability gives him an added advantage when sneaking up on targets. Able to climb twice as high as the other legends (two stories as opposed to just one), Revenant can clamber up to spots that can typically only be reached by Pathfinder (using Grappling Hook or Zipline) or Octane (using Launch Pad) and he does it so much more quietly than those two do. And once he's in position, he can sneakily crouch-walk right up to unsuspecting targets and attack before they even know he's there. While crouched, Revenant moves about as fast as the other legends do while walking--so you can actually bunny hop and strafe fast enough while crouched to dodge bullets in a firefight. Take advantage of your small hit box when you can.
Tactical Ability: Silence - Throw a device that deals damage and disables enemy abilities for 10 seconds.
Arguably Revenant's most powerful ability, Silence only affects enemy teams--making it a devastating force in close-quarters. Enemies hit by Silence will take 10 damage, be stunned, and their tactical and ultimate abilities will be disabled for 10 seconds. Similar to Octane's Stim, Silence can be used in tandem with other actions, meaning you can use the ability while healing, reloading, aiming, shooting, or throwing a grenade. Like Bangalore's Smoke Launcher, holding down the button to use Silence will reveal its trajectory, allowing you to aim where it lands. Silence sticks to wherever you throw it (including walls) so you can place it in spots to temporarily deter enemy advancement.
Ultimate Ability: Death Totem - Drop a totem that protects those who use it from death for a set amount of time. Instead of being killed or downed, users will return to the totem.
It takes a few seconds for Revenant to fully construct his totem and players need to actually interact with it first for it to take effect. Once used, the totem will transform you into a shadow that can only take health damage--your shields won't be affected. When you die, you'll return to the totem's location, but you'll only have 1 HP. The totem's effect has a very limited horizontal range, but it has no vertical limits. So you can go pretty far away from it if you place it in tall landmark locations like Epicenter, Train Yard, and Planet Harvester.
Tips To Play As Revenant
Revenant's abilities are all geared towards fighting at close- to mid-range, so securing some form of assault rifle, shotgun, or submachine gun is ideally what you want to do first. Both pistols and light machine guns work too, of course, but the former requires you have very good aim and the latter can be difficult to control when trying to hit a target that's not in your face. As incredible as the new Sentinel is, you probably want to steer clear of sniper rifles--if only because the limited range on Death Totem means that you won't be able to really use it as a way to put significant distance between you and an enemy upon death.
You want to lead every attack with the use of Silence. With a cooldown of 25 seconds, you should have enough time between engagements for Silence to recharge. Combat strategies for certain characters are defined by their tactical (players who use Gibraltar and Wraith typically rely on their tactical abilities to get them out of a sticky situation, for example). Taking someone's ability away can cause less experienced players to panic. Crypto alone is entirely defined by his tactical ability. Take that away and the character is basically useless.
It's worth noting that Silence is only preventative. Revenant stops others from using their tactical and ultimate abilities. If they're already active, then all Silence will do is stun and do small damage. You want to throw it out before Wraith's Voices from the Void give her enough warning to disappear Into the Void. You want to throw it out before Caustic and Wattson have time to set up their defenses and a team bunkers down. Always before. After the fact will do nothing substantial for you, which is why it pays to be aggressive when using Revenant. If you see another team, then you attack before they have a chance to see you and prepare.
Death Totem charges fairly quickly (just under 90 seconds), so use it if you're at all worried that your push is going to be met with more resistance than you can handle. Make sure you have a Med Kit equipped so you can immediately heal after you die. And you do want to die when using Death Totem. You've got just under 30 seconds before Death Totem's effect wears off, and if it does while you're still fighting, you won't have a way to easily retreat and you'll have to commit. Carefully planning out your attack and then executing a well-orchestrated ambush isn't Revenant's strong suit. Use Death Totem, throw out Silence, and just recklessly run forward. When you revive at your totem, heal and push again--essentially allowing you and your teammates to third party enemy squads on your own.
Because Revenant is at his best when he engages with reckless abandon, he pairs best with legends who can join him in a fast assault. Encourage teammates to play as Wraith, Octane, Bloodhound, Pathfinder, or Bangalore. For added protection, it's also good to team up with Wattson or Caustic players, who can use their tactical abilities to set up defenses around your Death Totem--it may keep squads off you just long enough for you to fully heal.
How To Counter Revenant's Weaknesses
Because Revenant grows less effective when he can't quickly close the distance between him and an enemy, he's at his weakest when in large open fields (it really makes you wonder how much better he's going to be in the vastly more enclosed spaces of Kings Canyon when that map returns, doesn't it?). Stalker and Death Totem make him a more viable attacker in areas where there's a lot of verticality, so it's best to try and drop in urban areas and then stick to them. Revenant struggles in the more rural spots on the outskirts of the map, where it's easier to see him coming and dodge his Silence.