Ash titanfall
Ash seems to be the dominant persona, but Leigh wants to escape her grasp.Īsh’s new character developments were hardly exclusive to her lore, though. Leigh, on the other hand, is a semblance of the humanity that Ash lacks, in more than one sense of the word. “Ash is the embodiment of the cold, perfectionistic, power-hungry side of Dr. Then, after fans knew Ashleigh from Ash, the trauma from becoming a simulacrum fractured the character into Ash and Leigh. Ashleigh Reid, Horizon’s cutthroat assistant. To transport Ash to Apex, writers introduced Dr. Bringing Ash in meant expanding her story from what fans had in Titanfall 2, and that resulted in giving her a new identity altogether. Designing Ash’s narrative in Apex required some “looking inward,” Reed said, “because a lot of what people liked about Ash was sort of read into her.”Īsh is “actually a pretty simple character” when considering how little interaction she had in Titanfall 2, Reed said. “From a lore perspective, the challenge was how do you take this character that people love and are really interested in, and how do you develop that character into something deeper,” lead writer Ashley Reed told Dot Esports. Hitting a balance between Ash’s old DNA and her new role in Apex required setting up new elements to both her gameplay identity and her lore. Of course, bringing Ash to Apex wasn’t just a matter of copying and pasting her Titan’s abilities. She has the advantage of moving around the battlefield and repositioning while the enemy is still stuck in that spot for some time, according to Weise. “She likes to play with her food,” Weise said, “so that’s where the idea of the tether came from.” Ash’s tactical ability throws a tether that keeps the enemy almost in place. Likewise, her Arc Snare is a new take on the Ronin’s Arc Wave, which sent a wave of electricity across the ground. Ash’s ultimate, Phase Breach, reclaims that purpose by letting the simulacrum tear a one-way portal through the Void. The Ronin’s Phase Dash would let the Titan phase shortly and perform a controlled dash, similarly to Wraith’s Into The Void tactical. Ash’s kit evokes memories of her Ronin Titan but with a few tweaks to bring the abilities in line with the combat in Apex. “The main idea we wanted to stick with was having both her tactical and the ultimate be sort of reminiscent of the Ronin abilities from Titanfall 2,” designer Devin Weise told Dot Esports in an interview. Dissociating Ash from Titanfall would take away the high-octane taste of Ronin’s calculated aggression-and that was never Respawn’s intention. Ash’s arrival as a playable character in Apex is marked by a new narrative that goes far beyond her time as a simulacrum but draws from a well of familiar inspiration.