In its recent earnings call, EA provided deeper insights into their future plans for the popular hero shooter, Apex Legends, and what players can expect moving forward.
Apex Legends 2 Not In EA's Interests as It Focuses Efforts on Player Base Retention
Apex Legends' Top Spot In Hero Shooter Genre Is Important to EA
Apex Legends is set to launch its 23rd season next month in early November. Despite its status as one of the most popular franchises in gaming, the hero shooter has seen a decline in player engagement since its 2019 launch, resulting in missed revenue targets. EA aims to address this through "fundamental changes."
During the company's Q2 earnings call, CEO Andrew Wilson discussed Apex Legends' performance, emphasizing the need for "meaningful systematic innovation that fundamentally changes the way the game plays."
Although declining numbers might suggest a move towards an "Apex Legends 2," Wilson's comments indicated that EA is not interested in pursuing a sequel, given the game's strong position in the top tier of the hero shooter genre.
"We do have a moment right now where we are managing the current trajectory of the business," Wilson stated. "But we believe by virtue of the strength of the brand, the size of the global community, and the position we hold in the top tier of these free-to-play live service games, that we’ll be able to return that to growth in the business side over time."
Wilson noted that the underperformance of Season 22 helped EA identify areas for improvement. "Following changes to the battle pass construct, we did not see the lift in monetization we had expected," he explained. He then highlighted two key observations in the free-to-play FPS category:
"First, in the competitive landscape where brand, a strong core player base, and high-quality mechanics matter more than ever, Apex has proven to be a compelling franchise for us and an industry stalwart," Wilson remarked. "Second, to drive significant growth and re-engagement, large systematic change is required. We will continue to focus on retention and breadth of content in service of our global community as we work towards more significant, innovative changes in the future."
Overall, EA's strategy leans towards enhancing the existing Apex Legends rather than developing an Apex Legends 2. "It’s a really good question and probably beyond the scope of this conversation, but what I would say is that typically, what we have seen in the context of live service driven games at scale, is the Version 2 thing has almost never been as successful as the Version 1 thing," Wilson added.
Apex Legends Slated for Innovative Updates On Season By Season Basis
Wilson emphasized that their current objective is to support Apex Legends' global player base and "deliver them new innovative, creative content on a season by season basis." He assured players that their time and effort invested in the game will be protected, as planned changes will be implemented "in a way that players don’t 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 creativity, that’s never a good place to put our community in, and so our objective will be to continue to innovate in the core experience," he explained, "and you’re seeing that from season to season now as our seasons get progressively bigger and we’re changing key modalities of play within those seasons."
EA has begun implementing these changes to enhance the Apex Legends experience. Wilson mentioned that their strategy to recover from declining player engagement involves "different modalities of play beyond what the current core mechanic delivers." He added, "and we think we can do those two things together, and we won’t believe we have to separate the experience in order to do so, but again, the team is working through this now."
