EA and Respawn Leisure have insisted on a number of events that they aren’t planning any significant overhauls or the same sequel for battle royale shooter Apex Legends, nevertheless it appears plans might have modified.
Talking throughout EA’s current quarterly earnings name (by way of VGC), CEO Andrew Wilson acknowledged the huge success of Apex Legends whereas admitting that its current trajectory has been beneath expectations.
“Apex might be one of many nice new launches in our trade during the last decade and has been liked by that core cohort,” he mentioned. “We’ve had over 200 million individuals play the sport. Nonetheless, the trajectory of the enterprise of that franchise has not been headed within the route that we’ve needed for a while.
Wilson went on to elucidate that within the quick to medium time period, the plan is to maintain supporting Apex Legends and creating new content material. This may also apparently embody “a extra significant replace of Apex as a broad sport expertise”, however this gained’t turn out to be a precedence till the subsequent Battlefield’s launch (which can occur someday earlier than April 2026).
“Now we have been making an attempt, tuning and testing many issues within the context of the continuing assist of the neighborhood,” he mentioned. “As we take into consideration Apex right this moment, I actually take into consideration the event occurring throughout three core vectors.
“The primary is how can we proceed to assist this unbelievable neighborhood that performs the sport day in and day trip, which numbers tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals. And that’s each high quality of life, anti-cheat, and all the issues that make the core expertise nice, in addition to the creation of recent content material for that neighborhood.
“The second section, and I believe I’ve talked about this earlier than, is we do imagine there will probably be a time the place we have to do a extra significant replace of Apex as a broad sport expertise, and the staff is diligently engaged on that. It’s best to think about we most likely wouldn’t drop that on prime of a Battlefield launch. So from a timing standpoint, our pondering proper now’s that that might exist post-Battlefield.”
Past that, in the meantime, Wilson says EA and Respawn Leisure are additionally planning a but extra complete improve – one thing alongside the strains of an Apex Legends 2.0.
“Someday on a longer-term time horizon, there will probably be a fair greater, extra significant replace to that broader sport expertise,” Wilson mentioned. “An Apex 2.0, if you’ll. This is not going to be the ultimate incarnation of Apex.
“The staff stays extremely dedicated. We proceed to speculate behind the core neighborhood which continues to play within the tens of hundreds of thousands of gamers. However we do imagine that there must be a extra main replace. That can most likely occur after the Battlefield launch, simply by way of timing. And the staff is diligently working via what that might be.
“After which longer-term, our expectation is that we’ll proceed to develop what this franchise is and the way we assist a core neighborhood of extremely aggressive gamers and new communities that need to come and expertise all of the greatness that Apex has to supply.”
