Apex Legends launched near the beginning of this year in a surprise drop and announcement, quickly becoming one of the biggest games for 2019. It took the battle royale formula, added a little Overwatch character ability twist in there, and has become a staple in the competitive genre.

With all of the important genre-defining aspects of the massive game like pings and abilities, there are some features that the game is still lacking. Forgetting the lack of dedicated solos and other game modes for a moment, players are only restricted to the first-person viewpoint in the game.

When you go into a match, you are going to be playing in the first-person perspective for most of the game outside of tiny exceptions like when you are dropping into the match from the drop ship. However, if a recent leak is to be believed, this first-person perspective could be changing soon.

Data Miner Reveals Tons of Changes for Apex Legends

Renowned and reputable data miner That1MiningGuy has posted their latest reveals from the game’s files online. These updated files likely come from the most recent update that brought with it the release of the new holiday event mode for players to enjoy for a limited time.

With each respective update, developer Respawn Entertainment has been known to add new files and update existing ones, which has allowed data miners like That1MiningGuy to find unannounced features. This latest update from the data miners has uncovered quite a lot of changes possibly coming soon.

On Twitter, the data miner posted a lengthy thread of several tweets that go over the various details, changes, and additions that they found within the game files. Of these changes, there are several notable ones like favorite skins, matchmaking changes, and even an Apex Legends third-person mode.

Of course, these are just files at this point and some of them are built around a bit of speculation so we do recommend that you take all of them with a heavy grain of salt until we find out more in the future. That1MiningGuy began their reported leaks with the skin and customization changes.

According to the files within the battle royale game, it seems that it would be possible to customize the player panel menu in the future. The player panel is the little HUD menu that you can see when you are in the middle of a match. It is found in the bottom left corner of the screen.

This panel is the crux of the game as you are able to see your health and various other important info there that are crucial for playing in each match. It seems that you will be able to customize this player panel in the near future, specifically, with how it looks in the game.

There are some sort of skins that you can reportedly apply to the player panel that will change it looks. We expect this to be something like changing it to a lighter theme, perhaps glowing, and so on. This is an intriguing option that could help out players who want it to be less or more of a distraction onscreen.

The second of several leaked features that showed in the data mining is that players will have the chance to select their favorite skins. Players will be able to select up to eight of their favorite skins in the game. The data miner speculates that this could mean a couple of different things.

First, it could mean that players will be able to easily select through their top eight favorite skins for easy access. It could even mean that players could be able to change their skins during the character select screen that happens when you are about to jump into a new match.

Lastly, it could spell a possible random skins feature where the game will just pick one skin for you for that match. That one, in particular, is a feature that is found in other similar games already so it is likely that this is true and will be added to the game in the near future.

New Weapons, Apex Legends Third-Person Mode, and More Leaked

The data miner was also able to find out info about a potentially new weapon that will be coming to the game. In the kick file of the game, some recoil patterns could be found for something called a Sentinel sniper rifle. This makes it sound like a new sniper rifle could be on the way.

Next up, there is a simple audio file change for the Volt SMG that cranks it from 44.1K to 48K HZ. This lends some credence that there will also be a new sub-machine gun in the near future, too. The fifth change revealed in the files is something about an opt-in and opt-out playlist.

The data miner speculates that this is a playlist or mode where players will be able to opt-in or out of a feature in the game like switching between first-person and an Apex Legends third-person mode. Alternatively, this could be for selecting which of the two maps a player wants to be on.

This would, presumably, spell the return of the Kings Canyon map that was the first one for the game before it was replaced by the current map. However, there is more support for an Apex Legends third-person mode as signaled by the next feature that the data miner found.

There are “tons of changes to [third-person] effects” that were reportedly found in the game files. The user takes this to mean that we are likely to get a full-on Apex Legends third-person option in the game soon or that it will be released as part of a limited time mode.

The latter seems likely as Respawn has been known to try out various features that are found in other games like solo mode for a limited time before removing it. But at the same time, it would be great to see an Apex Legends third-person option available for those who prefer that.

That would certainly put it more on par with other games like PUBG and Call of Duty Mobile, both of which offer first-person and third-person action for players. Next up on the list of changes that were found is the second-to-last one and has to do with the environmental effects.

There are some new environmental effects that can be found for explosives in the game. The example that was given is that if you throw a grenade into the water, it will have a very different effect than if you were to thrown it onto some muddy ground.

Changes to Skill-Based Matchmaking Also Revealed

Last but not least, the data miner discovered that some changes were made to the controversial skill-based matchmaking system that is in the game. Players are not fond of the system as is and have been asking for Respawn to change it for quite some time.

The data miner was unable to give details on what exactly was changed for the skill-based matchmaking system, though, since most of it is on the server side of things. The only thing they were able to see was that some of the variables for it were altered.

These changes should already be in the game with the release of the most recent update that kicked off the Holo-Day Bash event. It remains to be seen what these changes do as players are currently not a fan of how the game matches you up with other players based on your skill.

For now, though, players will need to wait and see if the other changes besides the matchmaking adjustments will be added to the game. Here’s hoping that the files are indicating that an Apex Legends third-person mode will actually become available soon.