Electronic Arts has said it’s now planning a “bigger, more meaningful update” for Apex Legends, or “an Apex 2.0”, several months after playing down the idea of a sequel.
Speaking in October, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said Apex Legends‘ latest season had fallen short of expectations, but that it was trying to improve the existing game experience through updates, rather than planning a full Version 2, which he said in the context of live service games, “has almost never been as successful as the Version 1 thing”.
However, speaking during EA’s earnings call on Tuesday, Wilson appeared to have softened his stance. As engagement continues to decline for Apex, the exec admitted that “a more meaningful update” was needed, and that Apex’s development team is at work planning one.
However, Wilson said that any significant Apex Legends release would not arrive until after the next Battlefield game, which is planned to launch sometime before April 2026.
“Apex is probably one of the great new launches in our industry over the last decade and has been loved by that core cohort,” Wilson said. “We’ve had over 200 million people play the game. However, the trajectory of the business of that franchise has not been headed in the direction that we have wanted for some time.
“We have been trying, tuning and testing many things in the context of the ongoing support of the community. As we think about Apex today, I really think about the development happening across three core vectors.
“The first is how do we continue to support this incredible community that plays the game day in and day out, which numbers tens of millions of people. And that’s both quality of life, anti-cheat, and all of the things that make the core experience great, as well as the creation of new content for that community.”
He continued: “The second phase, and I think I’ve talked about this before, is we do believe there will be a time where we need to do a more meaningful update of Apex as a broad game experience, and the team is diligently working on that. You should imagine we probably wouldn’t drop that on top of a Battlefield launch. So from a timing standpoint, our thinking right now is that that would exist post-Battlefield.”
Wilson said that EA had demonstrated its ability to build franchises that remain popular for multiple decades, and that “our expectation is that Apex will be also one of those franchises”.
He added: “Sometime on a longer-term time horizon, there will be an even bigger, more meaningful update to that broader game experience. An Apex 2.0, if you will. This will not be the final incarnation of Apex.
“The team remains incredibly committed. We continue to invest behind the core community, which continues to play in the tens of millions of players. But we do believe that there should be a more major update. That will probably happen after the Battlefield launch, just in terms of timing. And the team is diligently working through what that would be.
“And then longer-term, our expectation is that we’ll continue to expand what this franchise is and how we support a core community of highly competitive players and new communities that want to come and experience all the greatness that Apex has to offer.”
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