Apex Legends Reveals New Trans Character
Apex Legends introduced Catalyst, a defensive terraformer and conjurer who also happens to be transgender.
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Apex Legend introduces another trans woman as the game’s newest character. The newly introduced Catalyst, a defensive terraformer and conjurer, is joining other non-binary characters that have been present in Apex Legends since the game’s launch. Respawn Entertainment announced Catalyst’s introduction to the game and stated that she’d join the rest of the Legends in the game’s next major update, Eclipse, scheduled for November.
According to Polygon, Catalyst is trans and one of many LGBTQ characters in Apex Legends. She’s a technologically adept terraformer who creates tactical advantages using ferrofluid, a substance she stole from eco-terrorist. As per Respawn Entertainment’s statement, Catalyst, whose real in-game name is Tressa Smith, began her gender transition long before her backstory began. In fact, the development team made sure to make Catalyst inescapably trans, which is why the trailer actually references her transition.
Catalyst was a part of a coven of friends who fought to protect Cleo, the moon of Boreas (actual celestial bodies), against corporations who sought to mine the moon for profit. In fact, it would seem that the broken moon of Cleo acts as a new map for Apex Legends, scheduled as a next-month release. Respawn and EA — who recently pulled the plug on several of its gaming titles — promised more details about the game are inbound as we approach the official release date for the next major update.
The internet is a confusing place. There’s plenty of ambiguity front, back, and centers, the development team wanted to take that ambiguity out of the equation. That’s actually quite commendable on Respawn Entertainment’s part since most of the industry actually used specific color pallets and visual storytelling to hint at the character’s personal traits and features but never paint the whole picture.
It’s quite possible that EA went along with this following a series of controversies regarding Pride Month and brand rainbow-washing, which put the company in the crosshairs of various activists and citizen rights protection groups. Following massive backlashes, EA actually implemented a “sexuality spectrum” (for the lack of a better term) in their games, ranging from Apex Legends to the best-known life sim game, The Sims, in which you can define the character’s traits, their personal pronounces, and a whole range of other features.
Admittedly, The Sims might’ve overdone it a bit; your character can end up being a child of a lycanthrope-sim and a Plant-sim/Alien-sim hybrid with specific personal pronouns. But then again, it created a playing environment that’s diverse as life itself, so kudos where kudos are due. That’s precisely what EA and Respawn are doing here, though and to be fair, adding new characters, some of which are non-binary, isn’t actually a novelty when it comes to Apex Legends.
As things currently are, the game has more than half a dozen non-traditionally oriented characters. They were very well received by both LGBTQA+ and traditional segments of the gaming community. The new update, titled Apex Legends: Eclipse, arrives on November 1 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S, and PC.
