Apex Legends is now five years old, and still going strong. The game is currently headed toward season 23 in early November, and while its player numbers aren’t quite at the heights they used to be, the hero shooter still seems to be doing all right for itself. Some companies might be thinking right about now as to how they can refresh and replenish that playerbase with a sequel, but EA CEO Andrew Wilson doesn’t seem interested.
During today’s Q2 earnings call, Wilson stated in answer to an investor question that large live service games such as Apex that reach massive audiences must continue to creatively innovate and update, or they risk losing that coveted top spot. For that reason, he continued, EA recognizes a “need for meaningful systematic innovation that fundamentally changes the way the game plays,” and said that this is something the teams are actively working on.
As a follow up, someone else asked him that as the teams are working on that “systematic rethink of Apex,” if they’re considering doing “a whole studs-up rebuild” on something like an “Apex 2.0”, as opposed to incremental change over time.
Wilson’s answer? No. Here’s his response in full:
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. So, per Wilson, no Apex 2.0 for the foreseeable future, but there is some sort of “systemic innovation” on the horizon that could shake-up Apex Legends in a big way. The good news is that Wilson’s comments seem to jive with what the developers want too. Last year, Respawn’s game director Steve Ferreira told GameSpot that the studio doesn’t want to ever put the game in a position where the only option is to shut the whole thing down and launch Apex Legends 2, calling the idea an “anti-vision.”
EA reported a record Q2 today, with $2.08 billion in net bookings, and The Sims 4 gaining 15 million players in 2024. Apex Legends recently adjusted how it discloses loot box reward odds to players, and is gearing up for the start of Season 23 on November 5.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
