With all the buzz surrounding Dragon Age: The Veilguard, discussions about other Electronic Arts (EA) sequels are inevitable. Apex Legends just so happens to be an opportunity for a sequel, being a five-year-old game already. Sadly, EA doesn’t seem to have plans for an Apex Legends 2 or even a spinoff of some sort, so don’t hold your breath.
EA recently held its quarterly earnings call and meeting where CEO Andrew Wilson clarified the publishing studio’s plans. Here’s what he had to say about Apex Legends and the hypothetical Apex Legends 2:
“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.
Anytime we cause a global player community to have to choose between the investments they’ve made to date and future innovation and creativity, that’s never a good place to put our community in.
Our objective will be to continue to innovate in the core experience…and then build additional opportunities for engagement in different modalities of play beyond what the current core mechanic delivers. And we think we can do those two things together, and we don’t believe we have to separate the experience in order to do so.”
In summary, EA is taking things slowly with Apex Legends and wants to see where it can push the live-service titles further in terms of innovation. They also don’t want to divide their community into two.
So right now, no Apex Legends 2 or any renewal or reboot for Apex Legends in the foreseeable future. Still, those who play Apex Legends might want to revel on the bright side as Wilson also stated that systemic innovations are coming to the old game.
It’s worth noting that earlier in October, Apex Legends developer Respawn made some changes to the game’s loot box, rendering them more transparent. That could be a small part of the changes. Moreover, Apex Legends is about to have its 23rd Season on November 5, 2024. That’s likely too early to expect Wilson’s promised innovation for Apex Legends, but you never know.
Apex Legends has remained primarily a battle royale game ever since its inception and while the Battle Royale genre doesn’t burn as bright anymore, it still holds plenty of steam for the years ahead. The innovations Wilson mentioned could provide a transition into a fresher genre and trend, though so far, no other genre has been able to take the gaming industry by storm like Battle Royale.
