Perhaps the biggest shocker of Respawn’s EA PLAY preview of Apex Legends Season 2 was the Mozambique buff announcement. Lead producer Drew McCoy flat out stated that the shotgun pistol will become “usable.” That’s a tall order, considering the Mozambique is currently the worst gun in the game by almost every metric. What would it take to turn the Mozambique from meme to meta?
It turns out the answer might be bringing a second Mozambique.
Akimbo mode found in game files
A June 14 data-mine leak from Twitter user That1MiningGuy shows what could well be Respawn’s method of buffing the Mozambique. The leak shows a new fire mode — akimbo — enabled by a weapon mod with the same name. There is nothing like this currently in Apex Legends.
The strings shown in the leak are not associated with any weapon in particular. However, McCoy’s statement at EA PLAY was pretty explicit. Some weaker guns — including the Mozambique specifically — will be buffed to bring them more in line with current meta weapons. Respawn intends to achieve this with a couple of new hop-ups.
Another possibility for the mythical Mozambique buff is the recently leaked gold shotgun bolt. This new level 4 attachment would increase the user’s movement speed by 15 percent, if the leak is true. Whether that would actually make the puny Mozambique stronger is dubious. The Mozambique already lets its user move 9 percent faster than other shotguns, and that doesn’t seem to help much.
Would two Mozambiques actually be strong?
So, let’s assume for a moment that the akimbo mode will indeed allow certain Apex Legends weapons to be dual-wielded. The Mozambique, P2020, and RE-45 are the most likely candidates. Another is the Alternator, which is the only pistol-shaped SMG in the game. Out of this bunch, the Mozambique is arguably the one most in need of a buff. But would dual-wielding it actually make it “usable”?
The short answer is — yes. That is, if akimbo mode doubles the weapon’s DPS at the cost of spending two shells per shot. It would make the Mozambique an extremely specialized close-range burst weapon. Its current DPS is 135, which is decent but offset by an incredibly small three-shot magazine. Doubling that to 270 would turn it into a monster.
There is no drawback that would make a 270 damage-per-second weapon bad. Shotgun ammo is abundant in Apex Legends. And having to reload often isn’t much of a problem if you can drop most players with a couple of body shots.
Of course there are other variables to consider, like the Mozambique’s fickle pellet spread when hip-fired. And we don’t know yet how this akimbo mode works exactly. Without an official announcement, we don’t know if it will come to the game at all. For now all we can do is wait and, like Respawn once said, “enjoy the memes.”
