Apex Legends devs explain reason behind Spitfire ammo change

In a recent AMA, Respawn developers addressed why the team changed the M600 Spitfire LMG to use Light ammo instead of Heavy in Season 14.

Apex Legends’ Season 14 brought a lot of changes to the game, including a brand new Recon Legend and some major weapon updates.

Two of the biggest changes came in the form of the ammo-type adjustments for both the Wingman and Spitfire LMG, with the Wingman now using sniper ammo while the Spitfire uses light ammo.

Now, a recent AMA gave the dev team over at Respawn the opportunity to explain why they decided to change the Spitfire’s ammo type after 13 seasons.

Spitfire ammo change explained

As mentioned above, the explanation comes as part of a lengthy AMA held on the Apex Legends subreddit.

Reddit user Aixcix asked what the reasoning behind the Spitfire’s ammo change was and explained that they felt there was a “real imbalance between the Light vs. Heavy Weapons in the lootpool.”

In response, Apex Legends Senior Game Designer Eric Canavese responded that “It’s not always just the number of weapons within each ammo type,” in regards to the feelings of imbalance.

“We look at many factors and one of the determining factors in this decision was the balance of medium to late game viable weapons within the ammo types.”

Comment from discussion RV-Eric’s comment from discussion "[AMA] Let’s Talk Weapons and Legends!".

This change was meant to provide balance to the early and late game weapon offerings, as opposed to the number of weapons in each ammo category.

Cavanese went on to explain that “The early game light ammo offerings are plenty, but lack robustness towards the later stages of the game, whereas Heavy ammo had quite a fleshed out late game line up.”

He brought up the example of when the R301 was added to the Crafter last season while the G7 Scout was brought into the Care Package. In that case, Cavanese explained that “it didn’t feel like light had enough viable weapons in the late game which pushed us into a lopsided heavy meta.”

Considering many light weapons like the P2020, RE-45, and Alternator rarely see play in the late game, this change has already made quite the impact in its first season.