Apex Legends is quietly making a huge improvement to distinguishing your team from enemies

Every season of Apex Legends brings a plethora of patch notes and changes to the famous battle royale, and it looks like season 24, Takeover, includes a highly requested audio change that makes the game clearer.

For too long, the sounds of your teammates have blasted through your headset or speakers tricking you into believing there was an enemy nearby. Thankfully, the season 24 patch notes included changes to the game’s friendly audio systems, delighting Apex Legends players across the board.

The patch notes, which can be viewed in full on the official Apex website, include a section dedicated to these fantastic audio changes. It looks like friendly footsteps will be reduced, so players with keen ears can tell the difference between teammates and foes. As a bonus, the game now supports Mono-styled audio, which can be helpful for players with hearing impairments.

The sounds of friendly skydivers will also be tuned down, while doors opening and players riding on ziplines will be slightly louder. Many abilities, such as Fuse’s grenades and ultimate, are quieter, so they don’t interfere with tracking down your enemies. Finally, squadmates will automatically make less noise whenever there’s an enemy squad reviving near your location.

Players were quick to celebrate this news on a Reddit thread about the launch of the season, as the audio changes were requested by the community for many years. While the audio tweaks are great across the board, the patch may affect Mirage the most since the legend constantly makes loud noises whenever he uses his abilities. “Mirage decoys from my teammates won’t overlap everything in existence,” one player pointed out after reading the patch notes.

I have a lot of memories where I’m quickly turning down the audio on my headset while playing Apex because 20 Mirage clones start stomping around underneath me. He would get so loud that I could never track the audio cues of my enemies, causing them to sneak up behind me and get the kill. Now that all friendly footsteps are lighter, I couldn’t be more elated.

Another user shared their heartfelt joy over the audio changes, and explained how it will affect the way they play the game, “My left ear is nearly deaf, I have tinnitus (constant ringing in one ear). It literally affects my life at times. It’s rough… I’m constantly guarding my left, so this is just amazing!” Now that the game supports the mono output for audio, players suffering from similar conditions can adjust these settings and dominate the competition.

Although some fans of Apex did point out that the game was a little late to the party with these changes, this is still a fantastic quality-of-life update that players have been begging for. With these changes, the removal of Rift Relics, and the upcoming birthday celebration, it looks like the battle royale may see a surge of returning gamers.