Respawn Entertainment detailed the Season 31 Cipher changes in Respawn’s official Designer’s Notes on October 30. Full patch notes follow on November 2, with the season launching November 3. The notes position Cipher as a follow-up to Marked and say no legend is far ahead in pick rate, with the most picked ranked team composition below 1 percent of all team comps. Respawn also confirmed the return of District at night after the recent daytime rework.
Strongholds lock loot behind a capture-and-hold objective
One Stronghold drops each match in addition to the existing Care Packages. On landing, the structure is locked and inaccessible. To reach the Care Package Weaponry, Gold Guns, and other rare loot inside, a squad has to capture and hold the space around the Stronghold. Enemies can contest the capture and steal the loot. Opening the Stronghold takes time and trips an alarm that tells nearby players exactly where you are. As the pods land, they deploy dynamic cover in the surrounding area.
Mechanically, that is a deliberate inversion of the earlier Care Package and Mythic Bin pattern. Those systems dropped high-end loot and left players with a grab-and-run moment. Strongholds delay the payoff until a squad commits to a zone, holds it against contest, and then opens an alarmed container. The dynamic cover changes the shape of the fight immediately on landing, but it does not remove the contest window. Respawn said the position of each Stronghold shifts the flow of the game and changes each match based on local terrain and ring position at the time of drop.
Akimbo Wingman fires sequentially instead of simultaneously
The Wingman becomes the first new akimbo weapon since the system was added in Season 22, and the first burst akimbo gun. Pulling the trigger fires both Wingmen one after the other, a fire pattern Respawn describes as ‘pop-pop… pop-pop’. The studio said it worked to preserve the Wingman’s high skill floor and mid-range poke identity while lowering the intimidation factor so more players feel able to wield it.
A sequential burst is a deliberate accessibility-versus-skill tradeoff against the Season 22 akimbos. The design avoids turning two Wingmen into a simultaneous double shot that would dump a large damage spike on one trigger pull. Players still have to land two discrete revolver shots in quick succession, which keeps the weapon closer to the original pacing. That trades some raw burst clarity for approachability without removing the mid-range aiming requirement. Respawn frames it as a way to make the Wingman stand apart from other akimbo weapons and carve its own niche.
Crypto’s drone gets a 25-second battery and line-of-sight EMP
Crypto’s rework centers on reducing time spent camped in the drone. His drone now has a 25-second battery. When the battery runs out, the drone automatically recalls, and recall time is a little longer. The drone becomes available faster after being destroyed, and entering and exiting it is faster. The scan zone is now a 360-degree radius instead of only where the drone is looking. The drone no longer scans doors and loot bins. Drone handling is improved in base, and the drone is more visible to enemies to help pinpoint the faster Hack. Crypto’s drone can mark enemies with an icon visible through geometry for 8 seconds, and it auto-targets enemies while out in the world. While piloting, Crypto can manually shoot the drone to mark enemies within a zone.
The EMP now has three trigger states: one press deploys and activates when stowed, one press triggers a deployed drone, and the standard piloting trigger remains on PC or console. EMP damage and slow are now variable based on line of sight. If the drone lacks line of sight, enemies take 50 shield damage and a slight slow. If the drone has line of sight, enemies take full shield damage and a more impactful slow. That role shift moves Crypto away from parking the drone and toward placing it for specific EMP value. The 25-second cap forces quicker drone actions, while the line-of-sight split rewards precise placement over blanket detonation.
The Ally.MoveTo upgrade is now part of Crypto’s base kit, giving him a speed boost toward teammates. Mark duration can jump to 12 seconds through an upgrade, and the Hackathon upgrade is replaced by Charged Up, which adds 10 seconds to the drone battery. The Crypto update arrives in the same Season 31 ranked environment where Legend bans arrive in Season 31 and new ranks follow later.
Lifeline and Revenant receive buffs, Loba and Axle get nerfs
Lifeline’s glide passive now grants Tactical healing while gliding, and the 10-second Tactical cooldown reduction is integrated into her base kit. Improved Gliding gains better handling and a longer duration. BattPack is replaced by Enhanced Radio, which increases assign distance. Level 3 adds Revive Shield, bringing back her old revive-shield passive, and Ultimate Cooldown, which reduces her Ultimate cooldown by 60 seconds.
Revenant’s Tactical cooldown drops by 5 seconds, and the attack and charge-up time are faster. His Ultimate cooldown drops by 30 seconds, and the 35-second cap on the Ultimate timer is removed. Knocks now always add 5 seconds while the Ultimate is active. Three new upgrades replace old options: Every Lasting extends the Ultimate by 10 seconds on a knock, Silence creates an AoE pulse on Tactical leap landing that silences enemies for 4 seconds, and No Escape refreshes the Tactical when Revenant marks a low-health enemy through Assassin’s Instinct.
Loba’s Tactical cooldown rises from 25 to 30 seconds, and her Ultimate cooldown rises from 120 to 150 seconds. Respawn also re-summarized the October 1 Axle hotfix: aim assist is disabled in specific gameplay and ability contexts, which the team called a healthier alternative than adding random spread. Axle now has to fire Kickstart from farther away to get the more punishing knockback, so the drone shows its presence in-world before sending players upward.
Prowler and Nemesis cool down as Hemlok Burst AR returns
Respawn said the Prowler and Nemesis climbed steadily in usage rate and win rate all season. Both will receive nerfs to cool them off and bring them in line with the rest of the weapon pack. The notes do not list the exact values yet. The Hemlok Breach AR rotates out this season. The Elite Hemlok is vaulted, and the Hemlok Burst AR returns for its first appearance since the Elite Hemlok debuted in 28.1. Respawn acknowledged that Cipher is likely to shake up the weapon landscape.
Analysis: risk-reward inversion and the Crypto role shift
The Stronghold is the clearest risk-reward shift. Care Packages and Mythic Bins already drew fire, but they allowed a fast player to grab loot and leave. Strongholds remove that option until a squad captures and holds the zone, then opens an alarm-backed container. The contest window is longer, the location is noisier, and the dynamic cover means the fight starts before the loot is available. Squads that avoid the objective lose access to Care Package Weaponry and Gold Guns in that match, which could matter more in a ranked format with legend bans and new ranks on the way.
The Akimbo Wingman and the Prowler and Nemesis nerfs point toward a more deliberate mid-range meta. A burst akimbo revolver keeps the Wingman away from a one-trigger double shot, but it still gives players two shots in quick sequence. If the weapon meta shifts as Respawn expects, the return of the Hemlok Burst AR is the main loot pool change to watch alongside the new akimbo. These changes arrive while Respawn is still running matchmaking experiments for Plat+ queue times, so ranked players will feel the balance and queue changes in the same window.
Full patch notes on November 2 will show the exact cooldown and damage numbers for the weapon nerfs and upgrade tuning, ahead of the November 3 season launch.
