Apex Legends lead designer Daniel Z Klein fired over offensive posts Respawn EntertainmentOne of the most prominent developers at Respawn Entertainment, Daniel Klein, has been let go by the studio, after posts he made on a blog in 2007 resurfaced. Klein has confirmed that the offensive posts were the cause of his dismissal. Klein was the lead designer for the Legend balance team in Apex Legends. Due to his position, he often faced the community\u2019s ire when they disagreed with buffs or nerfs he made to certain characters. As one of the lead developers, Klein engaged frequently with the community across social media. Controversy in 2021 centered around a lack of changes for the Wattson character, who players believe is underpowered, but that Klein remained adamant was a strong and viable pick. Following this, allegations were made against the developer after a series blog posts he wrote in 2007 were uncovered and shared by members of the community. Although Respawn\u2019s director of comms initially responded, \u201cI don\u2019t think anything from 2007 reflects on a person in 2021. People grow up.\u201d Daniel Klein \u201cterminated\u201d from Respawn However, Respawn \/ EA have since taken action, letting go of Klein from the studio. On August 10, Klein confirmed his dismissal, writing \u201cYou may or may not have seen the awful, bigoted things I said in 2007. I wholeheartedly agree that THAT guy should have been fired. \u201cI said racist and sexist things, not because I deeply believed any of them, but because I knew I could get a reaction out of people. That does not excuse anything I said; the impact of my words was the same regardless of what I believed.\u201d He accepted the decision, but said he disagreed with it: \u201cTo be clear, I\u2019m not saying EA or Respawn did anything untoward. They were absolutely within their rights to terminate me, much as I may disagree with that decision.\u201d You may or may not have seen the awful, bigoted things I said in 2007. I wholeheartedly agree that THAT guy should have been fired. \u2014 danielzklein@bsky.social (@danielzklein) August 10, 2021 In one of the blog posts, from 2007 (when Klein was 27\/28), he made sexist remarks about women being irrational, and a joke about feeding Africans. Klein\u2019s work on Apex Legends also included the gameplay design of Valkyrie, the Season 9 Legend. Apex Legends has now entered its 10th season, and will do so without the lead balance designer it has had since launch. It remains to be seen if Klein\u2019s position will be taken up by another member of the current live balance team at Respawn. Klein was also fired from his previous role at Riot, after a dispute within the community about a women-only event at PAX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apex Legends lead designer Daniel Z Klein fired over offensive posts Respawn EntertainmentOne of the most prominent developers at Respawn Entertainment, Daniel Klein, has been let go by the studio, after posts he made on a blog in 2007 resurfaced. Klein has confirmed that the offensive posts were the cause of his dismissal. Klein was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}