Apex Legends lead developers explain their vision for the future of Apex Respawn EntertainmentSeason 16 of Apex Legends is about to begin. The game is now four years old, and there is a mix of anticipation and trepidation about the future of the franchise. Dexerto spoke to the game director and design director at Respawn, and asked some of the community\u2019s most pressing questions. The new season will be the first in the game\u2019s history not to release a new Legend. This is just the start of what the developers promise will be continued subversion of expectations over the coming seasons this year and beyond. EA confirmed at their most recent earnings call that the Apex franchise had unperformed expectations, citing \u201cchallenging market dynamics.\u201d This felt like a clear nod to the competition, such as Warzone 2 and Overwatch 2, likely to steal away the attention of some Apex players. Apex Legends Mobile is being shutdown, and an unannounced single-player Apex game has been scrapped. So, how can Apex, a four-year-old game, maintain its position as a leading battle royale title, as the competition keeps coming? The future of Apex Legends \u201cWe\u2019re committed to the philosophy of evolving the game,\u201d said Evan Nikolich, senior design director on Apex Legends. \u201cWe will keep building on the core game and evolve, reacting to the community and adding new content.\u201d Nikolich compared Apex to other long-lasting live-service games CS:GO and League of Legends. These games have maintained popularity for over a decade, and Respawn hopes Apex will have a similar 20-year lifespan at least. \u201cThe approach has stayed the same,\u201d said game director Steven Ferreira, when asked about staying resilient vs the competition. \u201cWe experiment, learn from that, and make incremental changes. There are some big sweeping changes coming this year in particular, which are more about the game itself, and not about the competition.\u201d \u201cApex has grown to a place with so much content, while maintaining the content players know and love. One season to the next doesn\u2019t seem like much, but when you look over the years, you can see how much has changed.\u201d Ferreira also confirmed there will never be an Apex Legends 2 \u2013 unlike rivals such as Warzone 2 and Overwatch 2 \u2013 it\u2019s all about building on the core game. \u201cSweeping changes\u201d coming to Apex Respawn said that this year, there will be some major changes to Apex that players are not expecting, and that \u201cnothing is off the table.\u201d Asked if this was similar to when Skulltown was removed, despite being so iconic, Ferreira explained: \u201cYes, similar to Skulltown. People thought \u2018we can\u2019t possibly change this\u2019 but nothing is precious.\u201d They explained that even if something is \u201cfun individually,\u201d they won\u2019t be scared to address it \u201cif it does harm to the overall game.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re going to see pretty big highlights this year. The [new] classes are an example of that, even though that wasn\u2019t that precious to people, it was there for a long time. Legends, maps modes, progression, ranked \u2013 there is not an area where we are standing still.\u201d Why skip a new Legend? For the first time, there won\u2019t be a new Legend to headline a season launch. This was bound to happen at some point \u2013 Respawn confirmed as much to Dexerto last year \u2013 but it\u2019s a risk nonetheless. Will players feel shortchanged? Will it dampen hype for the new season? Will the season get stale faster? These are no doubt questions Respawn have considered, but Nikolich explained that they think of the game like \u201ctending a garden.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a shift from \u2018predictable\u2019 updates, we\u2019re not just tending the garden \u2013 if we don\u2019t trim the weeds, it becomes overgrown.\u201d Another big change is the removal of Arenas in Season 16, and Nikolich gave this as an example of something that was overgrown in the garden, and so they weren\u2019t afraid to sunset it entirely. \u201cArenas wasn\u2019t doing the job.\u201d Although, for Arenas lovers, Nikolich didn\u2019t rule it a return entirely: \u201cWe\u2019re looking at it.\u201d Also, don\u2019t worry \u2013 there will be a new Legend next season. How different is the Apex team now vs four years ago? In the past two years, a number of high-profile developers on Apex Legends left Respawn for pastures new. These included the former game director, map designers, communication directors and more. Asked about how different the team is now vs when Apex launched in 2019, Ferreira explained that \u201cthe team reflects the game\u201d \u2013 as it\u2019s always evolving. \u201cWe hope [Apex] is still around in 20 years. [Developers leaving] is a natural progression, I don\u2019t know many devs that can work on one game for 15 years straight. \u201cWe\u2019re always trying to keep the team fresh, and we want as many people who are as passionate about playing the game as they are making it. The team makeup is definitely larger, but a significant part of the team was here from before launch too. \u201cWe have some news about the continued growth of Apex and Respawn and general coming. One day, we hope we\u2019ll have people joining the team who grew up playing the game.\u201d Nikolich, agreed, explaining that while new people join, the \u201cvalues of the team and pillars of the game, those are strong. We stay true to what Apex is, we never want to change Apex into something it isn\u2019t, we want to keep it a competitive BR shooter.\u201d For players who might have been worried about devs departing the team, they acknowledged that \u201cfrom the outside, change can be concerning,\u201d but compared it sports teams changing players \u2013 \u201cthe franchise stays the same.\u201d Monetization in Apex Legends Monetization is a necessary component of any free-to-play game. Apex Legends has tried to strike the balance between value for players and sustainability for the business. Sometimes, players feel that balance hasn\u2019t been achieved. Asked about recent complaints from the community regarding recolors and collection events, Nikolich and Ferreira were transparent. On recolors specifically, Ferreira explained that the team likes recolors because it gives new players an opportunity to get something that other players have, without just re-releasing the same skin again. However, they confirm that they have \u201c100% seen the feedback. We\u2019ve heard loud and clear.\u201d In the last collection event of Season 15, players who completed the collection were rewarded with a reactive Peacekeeper skin \u2013 a recolor too. This angered many, as typically the collection event reward is an heirloom or mythic skin, and so a weapon skin felt like a significant downgrade. Ferreira admits that the team did not expect the negative reaction: \u201cWe thought players would really like the opportunity to get it.\u201d \u201cBut we learned some lessons. You won\u2019t see that collection event reward again, I can pretty much guarantee that. The intent is always to do something players enjoy and see value in, definitely not trying to upset anyone.\u201d As well as feedback on social, they also use data about where players spend their money and what content they value most. Nikolich added, \u201cWe want people to feel good about the money they spend, to feel good to get something new, not cheap.\u201d He also advised players to give feedback both verbally and \u201cwith your wallets \u2013 don\u2019t spend money if you don\u2019t want the item.\u201d The infamous cross-progression question As time came to a close in our chat, it was important to ask once again about cross-progression, by far the most-requested feature in Apex Legends. Ferreira confirmed: \u201cWe\u2019re definitely excited about cross-progression coming. It was trickier than expected, and we want to make sure it\u2019s ready. Also because you only get one crack at rolling something like this out.\u201d Ferreira expanded on this, explaining that there are different ways that cross-progression can be implemented and that they \u201cwant to set it up the way we want it.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t have a definitive date, but it\u2019s definitely coming.\u201d Season 16 of Apex Legends begins on February 14, with Team Deathmatch, a revamped Legend class system, and a new weapon. You can check out all of Dexerto\u2019s Season 16 coverage here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apex Legends lead developers explain their vision for the future of Apex Respawn EntertainmentSeason 16 of Apex Legends is about to begin. The game is now four years old, and there is a mix of anticipation and trepidation about the future of the franchise. Dexerto spoke to the game director and design director at Respawn, […]<\/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-15224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15224","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=15224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}