Apex Legends Season 31 'Cipher': Crypto Reworked, Akimbo Wingmans and Strongholds

On February 4, 2019, the day after the Super Bowl, Respawn Entertainment released a game nobody outside the studio knew existed. Fans had expected Titanfall 3. Instead they got Apex Legends, a free battle royale set in the Titanfall universe, with no titans and no wall-running. It passed 1 million players in eight hours, 25 million in its first week and 50 million in its first month.

Nearly eight years later, Apex is still running, and on November 3, 2026 it began Season 31, "Cipher". The new season brings a full rework of the hacker Legend Crypto, a dual-wielded version of the Wingman pistol, and capturable bunkers called Strongholds. It runs until early January 2027.

Crypto, rebuilt

Crypto has always been a Legend for patient players: he flies a drone to scout, then detonates an EMP to break enemy shields. Season 31 makes him more forgiving and more powerful.

• Passive: a speed boost when moving toward teammates is now part of his base kit, slightly reduced in strength.
• Tactical: his drone now runs on a battery with a 25-second action limit and a 6-second recall, and no redeploy cooldown. Enemies the drone sees can be marked for 8 seconds.
• Ultimate: Crypto can now trigger his EMP by deploying a drone, and enemies in its line of sight take full shield damage and a heavier slow.

The aim is clear: make Crypto useful in fast fights, not just when a team sits still to scout.

Akimbo Wingman and Strongholds

The Akimbo Wingman is Season 31's new weapon idea. Pick up a second Wingman and you automatically switch to dual-wielding, which doubles the magazine. To balance it, each Wingman's base damage drops from 50 to 45. It uses Heavy Ammo and is built for close and mid-range fights.

Strongholds are bunker-style structures that airdrop near the middle of a match. Teams capture one by holding the surrounding zone. A captured Stronghold gives every living player on the team a level-up and holds rare loot, including Care Package weapons, the top-tier guns usually found only in supply drops. Expect Strongholds to become a magnet for late-game fights.

Maps and modes

For Season 31, public matches and Ranked rotate between Storm Point, E-District Night and Broken Moon. Mixtape, the casual playlist, runs Team Deathmatch, Control and Gun Run on smaller maps such as Thunderdome, Skull Town and Production Yard from November 3 to January 5. A Wildcard playlist brings District and Broken Moon first, with Olympus joining from December 1.

Where Apex stands in 2026

Respawn's 2026 roadmap, published at the start of Season 28, covers five seasons: Season 28 (February to April), Season 29 (May to July), Season 30 (August to October), Season 31 (November to January) and Season 32 (February to April 2027). New Legends were planned for Season 29 and Season 32, with reworks of Fuse, Catalyst and Bloodhound earlier in the year and a competitive overhaul of World's Edge later on.

The game's platforms are shifting. Apex launched on Nintendo Switch 2 on August 5, 2025, while Respawn announced on January 30, 2026 that the original Switch version would be discontinued after Season 29. On Steam, Apex is a long way from its record of 510,286 concurrent players set in August 2022, and reports in 2024 suggested it had lost about 70% of its Steam audience over that year. It is no longer the giant it was in 2019, but eight years in, Respawn is still planning seasons well into 2027.

Why it matters

Apex's 2026 strategy is about depth rather than size: reworking old Legends, adding systems like Strongholds that change how a match flows, and keeping the roster fresh twice a year. Season 31's Crypto rework is a good example: a long-overlooked Legend made viable again.

If you drifted away from Apex, Season 31 is a sensible return point, and it is still free. For a look at how other big team shooters are changing, see our Overwatch vs Marvel Rivals long read.