Speaking during an earnings call overnight, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has revealed that the publisher needs “a more meaningful update” for Apex Legends as player engagement continues to decline, which may include a proper sequel.
Previously, Wilson had played down the idea of releasing Apex Legends 2 when discussing how to improve on the original game, which would include new updates rather than a proper sequel. He now seems to have softened on the idea, but noted any significant release for the battle royale title wouldn’t arrive until after the new Battlefield game.
Apex is probably one of the great new launches in our industry over the last decade and has been loved by that core cohort. 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. We have been trying, tuning and testing many things in the context of the ongoing support of the community. As we think about Apex today, I really think about the development happening across three core vectors.
Related Content — Upcoming PS5 Games 2025: The Best PS5 Games Coming Soon
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.
Apex Legends was released for the PS4, PC, and Xbox One in February 2019 and has seen a continuous stream of post-launch support from developer Respawn, although as mentioned, player engagement has been on the decline as of late.
[Source – VGC]