During an earnings call EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, tackled the question of whether Apex Legends players could expect to get a sequel or a 2.0 version of the game. However, the answer seems pretty clear: It’s probably a no.
“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,” Wilson says (via IGN). “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.
“Any time 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.”
The idea that EA just wants to stick with Apex Legends in its current version and build off that has been a long-held argument. Way back when in 2019, producer Drew McCoy said the studio was committed to Apex Legends for the long term and, therefore, would never make an Apex 2.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen a couple of examples of redundant sequels. The biggest obviously being Overwatch 2. Many players still argue that Overwatch 2 is a failed idea because Blizzard managed not to follow through with the sequel’s main promise of PvE. Apart from new heroes, battle passes, 5v5, and a change towards a seasonal calendar, not much has changed from the original Overwatch.
Then there’s Counter Strike 2. While there were improved visual effects like interactive smoke and higher-resolution weapon models, not a lot changed with this upgrade from Counter Strike: Global Offensive. At launch, there were plenty of angry pro players who didn’t see the point in CS2 and claimed that the sequel wasn’t even close to being better than CS:GO. Even when sequels do work, like Payday 2, there’s no telling when they’ll completely explode, like Payday 3.
“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,” Wilson says. “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.”
Apex Legends might have its issues, but it is nice to see someone buck the curve of needless sequels. Even if the next big change players will probably see is more monetisation after EA missed its latest targets for the new battle pass construct.
