Respawn Entertainment has come out swinging in 2019 and it has no intention of slowing down, either. Back in February, the respected developer realized its first attempt at the free-to-play live service model with Apex Legends. The battle royale saw explosive growth in its first month of release, attracting more than 50 million players to its shores, a milestone quickly followed by its defeat of Epic Games’ Fortnite in Twitch viewership ratings just weeks later.
Since then, interest in the competitive team-based shooter has tapered off, with players casual and hardcore alike beginning to tire of recurring issues and a general lack of content. In its most recent address to the fans titled, Respawn acknowledged that a side effect of the game’s rapid growth has been an influx of bugs and cheaters, issues that it has had no choice but to sink development time into.
Apex‘s content schedule has suffered as a result, though Respawn’s Drew McCoy has taken the opportunity to clearly address its plans going forward, saying:
“For complete transparency, our goal isn’t, and never has been, to patch or update content on a weekly basis. We believe strongly in the importance of large, meaningful changes to the game that have lasting impact, thus our focus on a seasonal release cadence we laid out at launch.”
Given the similar space both Apex Legends and Fortnite share, that Respawn has no intention of pushing out weekly updates seen in the latter is an important distinction to make, and one that’ll hopefully take some of the pressure off the studio’s shoulders.
Sadly, however, Respawn reaffirming its “100%” dedication to Legends means other games will suffer as a result. While the team responsible for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is wholly apart from those assigned to Apex Legends, the same can’t be said for Titanfall 3. The sequel, while never officially announced, has long been suspected to be in development, though that’s no longer the case. “In order to fully support Apex Legends, we are pushing out plans for future Titanfall games,” reads the statement.
Sad news for Titanfall fans, then, but every cloud has a silver lining. Titanfall 3 may be on hiatus indefinitely, but its world lives on in Apex Legends. If Respawn’s words hold true, the future looks bright, indeed, for the latter.