EA Games says a sequel to its hit battle royale first-person shooter, Apex Legends, isn’t on the table at the moment at Respawn Entertainment. EA CEO Andrew Wilson says the focus right now is on improving the game and making new, evolving content that players can enjoy under one game instead of shifting priorities and resources over to a sequel (possibly learning a thing or two from the misfire that was Overwatch 2).
“Following changes to the battle-pass construct, we did not see the lift in monetisation we had expected,” said Wilson in a recent earnings conference call. “We will continue to focus on retention and breadth of content in service of our global community as we work towards more significant, innovative changes in the future.”
Wilson possibly made an indirect reference to Overwatch 2 when talking about a sequel to Apex Legends and how a ‘version two’ of a game “has almost never been as successful as the ‘version one’ thing.” He explained:
“Typically, what we have seen in the context of live service-driven games at scale is the ‘version two’ thing has almost never been as successful as the ‘version one’ thing. And so actually, the objective right now is to ensure that we are continuing to support the global playerbase that we have, and deliver them new, innovative, creative content on a season-by-season basis, as well as build these other things, but build them in a way that players do not have to give up the progress that they’ve made or the investment that they’ve put into the existing ecosystem.”
Apex Legends has had its fair share of problems this year. EA had to reverse changes to the game’s battle pass earlier this year when the game tried to force players to purchase two battle passes per season. The controversial move faced a lot of backlash from the community, forcing EA to reverse course and go back to players only requiring one battle pass per season.
Source: EA Games
