EA and Respawn Entertainment Are Planning an Apex Legends 2.0

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EA and Respawn Entertainment have insisted on several occasions that they aren’t planning any meaningful overhauls or a similar sequel for battle royale shooter Apex Legends, but it seems plans may have changed. Speaking during EA’s recent quarterly earnings call (via VGC), CEO Andrew Wilson acknowledged the massive success of Apex Legends, but admitted that the game’s recent trajectory has been below the publisher’s expectations.

“Apex is probably one of the great new launches in our industry over the last decade and has been loved by that core cohort,” he said. “We’ve had over 200 million people play the game. However, the trajectory of the business of that franchise has not been headed in the direction that we have wanted for some time.

Wilson went on to explain that in the short- to medium-term, the plan is to keep supporting Apex Legends and developing new content for the shooter. Apparently, this will also include “a more meaningful update of Apex as a broad game experience”, though this isn’t going to become a priority until the next Battlefield will release (which will happen sometime before April 2026, EA has said).

“We have been trying, tuning and testing many things in the context of the ongoing support of the community,” he said. “As we think about Apex today, I really think about the development happening across three core vectors.

“The first is how do we continue to support this incredible community that plays the game day in and day out, which numbers tens of millions of people. And that’s both quality of life, anti-cheat, and all of the things that make the core experience great, as well as the creation of new content for that community.

“The second phase, and I think I’ve talked about this before, is we do believe there will be a time where we need to do a more meaningful update of Apex as a broad game experience, and the team is diligently working on that. You should imagine we probably wouldn’t drop that on top of a Battlefield launch. So from a timing standpoint, our thinking right now is that that would exist post-Battlefield.”

Beyond that, meanwhile, Wilson says EA and Respawn Entertainment are also planning a yet more comprehensive upgrade- something along the lines of an Apex Legends 2.0.

“Sometime on a longer-term time horizon, there will be an even bigger, more meaningful update to that broader game experience,” Wilson said. “An Apex 2.0, if you will. This will not be the final incarnation of Apex.

“The team remains incredibly committed. We continue to invest behind the core community, which continues to play in the tens of millions of players. But we do believe that there should be a more major update. That will probably happen after the Battlefield launch, just in terms of timing. And the team is diligently working through what that would be.

“And then longer-term, our expectation is that we’ll continue to expand what this franchise is and how we support a core community of highly competitive players and new communities that want to come and experience all the greatness that Apex has to offer.”