Apex Legends Delayed: Extended Development Timeframe

In its recent earnings call, EA has given additional insights into how they'll be moving forward with popular hero shooter Apex Legends, as well as what its player base can expect in the future.

Apex Legends 2 Not In EA's Interests as It Focuses Efforts on Player Base RetentionApex Legends' Top Spot In Hero Shooter Genre Is Important to EA

Apex Legends is slated to enter its 23rd season next month in early November, and while EA's hero shooter game remains as one of the most popular franchises in the gaming world, its player engagement numbers have been experiencing a decline over the years since its launch in 2019. Consequently, the game has missed its revenue targets—something EA plans to address through "fundamental changes."

During the company's Q2 earnings call today, CEO Andrew Wilson acknowledged how Apex Legends has been performing, additionally remarking that there is a "need for meaningful systematic innovation that fundamentally changes the way the game plays."

Though a decline in the game's numbers could point towards EA moving forward with an "Apex Legends 2," Wilson's remarks appeared to have suggested that the company is not interested in making an Apex Legends sequel due to the top tier position the hero shooter currently holds.

"We do have a moment right now where we are managing the current trajectory of the business," Wilson remarked. "But we believe by virtue of the strength of the brand, the size of the global community, the position we hold in the top tier of these free-to-play live service games, that we’ll be able to return that to growth in the business side over the course of time."

Wilson additionally said that Apex Legends Season 22 falling short of expectations had helped EA to come to realize several things in how they should continually improve the game. "Following changes to the battle pass construct, we did not see the lift in monetization we had expected," he said. " Wilson then went on to explain two aspects EA has observed in the free-to-play FPS category:

"First, in the competitive landscape where brand, a strong core player base and high quality mechanics matter more than ever, Apex has proven to be a compelling franchise for us and an industry stalwart," Wilson remarked. "Second, to drive significant growth and re-engagement, large systematic change is required. 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."

Overall, EA seemed to be more interested in continually improving the existing Apex Legends instead of rebuilding from the ground up with essentially an Apex Legends 2. "It’s a really good question and probably beyond the scope of this conversation, but what I would say is that typically, what we have seen in the context of live service driven games at scale, is the Version 2 thing has almost never been as successful as the Version 1 thing," Wilson additionally remarked.

Apex Legends Slated for Innovative Updates On Season By Season Basis

Wilson additionally said that their objective at the moment is to ensure that Apex Legends' global player base continue to receive support, "and deliver them new, groundbreaking, imaginative content on a season by season basis," he stated. Moreover, Wilson said players will receive guarantee that their time and effort spent on Apex Legends are things EA will safeguard as these changes they plan on making will be built "in a way that players don’t have to give up the progress that they’ve made or the investment that they’ve put into the existing ecosystem."

"Any time we cause a global player community to have to choose between the investments they’ve made to date and future pioneering creativity, that’s never a good place to put our community in, and so our objective will be to continue to innovate in the core experience," he explained, "and you’re seeing that from season to season now as our seasons get progressively bigger and we’re changing kind of key modalities of play within those seasons."

EA has started their efforts to make these changes in the Apex Legends experience, Wilson said, additionally noting that their plans on bouncing back from the declining player engagement will take form "in different modalities of play beyond what the current core mechanic delivers." He added, "and we think we can do those two things together, and we won’t believe we have to separate the experience in order to do so, but again, the team is working through this now."