Hot Drop is GameSpot's weekly Apex Legends column, in which Jordan Ramée takes a closer look at Respawn's battle royale to provide additional insight into the game's evolution, as well as dive deeper into its episodic storytelling and characters.

Apex Legends Awakening Collection Event is underway, adding Valkyrie's heirloom to the battle royale and even further confirming the legitimacy of that giant Apex Legends leak from March 2022. Like her namesake, Kairi "Valkyrie" Imahara wields a spear as her heirloom, one that's been custom-made to use propulsion jets in order to make it easier for Valkyrie to stab or swing the massive weapon with one hand.

It doesn't, however, really do anything to change what it's like to play Valkyrie. This has been the case with most of Apex Legends' heirlooms. While these mythic-tiered cosmetics give their assigned legends a unique banner animation and intro quip, they don't change what a player sees while actually playing the game, other than the animation of a character's run and melee attack.