Apex Legends’ latest character, the heroic defender Newcastle, has fallen far in terms of his pick rate — and some players think they know why.
There was a lot of intrigue surrounding Newcastle before Apex Legends Season 13 officially arrived, thanks to his backstory as Bangalore’s brother and speculation around his ability kit.
However, since his introduction to the game players seem to have slowly drifted away from him in favor of staple choices like Gibraltar, Wraith, and Octane.
Now, the most recent data from Season 13 revealed Newcastle is currently the third least picked Legend, with the consensus from players seeming to think he’s simply outshined by other “meta” Legends.
Newcastle third-lowest picked Legend in Season 13
A post on the Apex Legends subreddit started a discussion among the community as to why Newcastle only had a 2.2% pick rate in Season 13, falling over 17% from the start of the season.
The post spawned some healthy debate, with some players chalking up his steep fall due to new Legend excitement, while others think his low pick rate is due to his role as a Defense character.
However, Reddit user ‘LinceDorado‘ put forward that maybe it’s because “the ‘Meta’ Legends are just too good at what they do. It isn’t even that the other Legends are bad, it’s that the meta ones are better.”
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Plenty of the comments brought up Gibraltar as a likely factor in Newcastle’s pick rate, with LineDorado even noting that “Newcastle, for all intents and purposes, is just a worse Gibraltar.”
Apex Legends’ meta has revolved around Gibby’s shield meta for quite some time, with Respawn continuously trying to find balance changes to shake things up.
While some of Newcastle’s kit is reminiscent of Gibby’s, Gibby’s overall kit has cemented his place as the premier Defense Legend in the game.
It’s important to note that, as user ‘EKrug_02_22‘ pointed out, “…buffing the Legends will not make them popular…See how Crypto, Rampart, Wattson, etc. [got] buffed, became almost 2x of themselves, [and] still [had] low pick rates?”
Though players remain divided on what Newcastle needs to make him shine going forward, it’s clear that he’s currently facing stiff competition from mainstay characters that define Apex Legends’ current meta.
