Crypto, Apex Legends' New Character, Is Already In The Game (But Not Playable)

A figure who appears to be Cryto–long believed to be the eleventh playable character coming to Apex Legends, thanks to datamining and outright leaks–has been spotted in Respawn’s battle royale. If you travel to Singh Labs, added to King’s Canyon during the limited-time Voidwalker event, you can spot the character believed to be Crypto in a secret room. [Update: Respawn has officially announced Crypto with a first trailer along with details on the start of Season 3.]

Crypto disappears once you spot him, so if you want to see him, your squad will have to reach the Singh Labs and enter the secret room ahead of other players. Upon entering the labs, head towards some suspiciously propped open doors, noticed by Reddit user FrozenFroh, and break them down. You can also squeeze by them if you prefer. Inside you’ll see Crypto finishing up a download on one of the labs’ computers. Upon noticing you, he’ll panic, yank out his hard drive, and run out with his drone in tow.

The mysterious hacker has had a presence in Apex Legends for a long time, first teased back in June after Octane’s introduction and before Wattson was even on most player’s radar. FrozenFroh found that teaser too–Crypto’s laptop secretly hidden on the King’s Canyon map. Crypto would then be alluded to again during the start of Apex Legends Season 2, when the cinematic trailer for the season showcased the hacker as the one responsible for destroying the tower that kept the flyers and leviathans at bay.

As Season 2 has wound down, Crypto’s presence in King’s Canyon has grown more noticeable. In the Wraith-focused cinematic short that released alongside the start of the Voidwalker event, you can see the interdimensional skirmisher insert a flash drive into a Singh Labs’ computer, which injects hacking software that’s marked with Crypto’s trademark callsign.

King’s Canyon has experienced strange glitches too, most likely the result of the person who’s attempting to decrypt…the King’s Canyon computers? Maybe? It hasn’t been very clear. All we know is that some of the screens in King’s Canyon have glitched out and begun showing a progress bar for the decryption and the bar has been steadily filling up more each time throughout the Voidwalker event, finally completely filling this past weekend–which coincides with Crypto’s appearance on the map. The announcer’s voice has also been occasionally garbled in the game–the glitch popped up whenever one of Crypto’s decryption attempts failed to fully complete. Crypto wants something, but what he wants remains unclear.

His recent appearance on the map presents the most clues, hinting that Crypto’s hacks have not been malicious against the Legends and he is actually trying to achieve something. The computer Crypto is pulling data from seems to control the massive void portal connected to the labs. Thanks to the Wraith cinematic short, it’s now confirmed that the void portals can connect to other dimensions and someone can travel to them with the right harness. In Wraith’s case, she uses the gauntlet on her forearm and the labs seem to be studying how to emulate this technology so others can do the same.

Before he shuts down what he’s working on, you can see Crypto is trying to redirect the void portal to connect to a place called World’s Edge. World’s Edge isn’t a reference to anything Titanfall-related so it’s difficult to accurately guess what it could be, or if it even matters for Crypto’s official introduction–which is expected to coincide with the addition of a new weapon and map change with the launch of Season 3. Given that it seems to be a new location, however, it could be possible that World’s Edge is in reference to the Season 3 map change or a hint that we’re getting a brand-new, second map for Apex Legends. Only time will tell.

Apex Legends is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.