Apex Legends continues to prove its staying power in a crowded genre dominated by Fortnite.
Despite getting off to a rocky start nine months ago, Respawn has been quick to act on remedying several major issues raised by early adopters of the battle royale. The near-total eradication of cheaters, more streamlined (and frequent) content delivery and, of course, new cosmetics have poured into Kings Canyon on the regular since the implementation of the popular seasonal model found in its contemporaries.
The result is a well-rounded title that now sits just below Epic Games’ market leader and, by the looks of it, boasts a degree of popularity that shows no signs of tapering off. That’s the picture that recent figures released by SuperData seem to suggest, at least.
According to the number-crunching site, Apex Legends posted its most successful month since launch in October, generating a whopping $45 million from in-game spending. The total combines revenue from both PC and console players and represents a huge uptick over September’s $16 million figure. The increase is largely attributed to the launch of Season 3: Meltdown several weeks ago, which introduced not just the expected new character and weapon, but an all-new map in the form of World’s Edge.
Good news for Respawn, then, but even more so for EA, which had, until now, found itself without a major growth driver. BioWare’s Anthem, which had meant to compete with other live service titles such as Destiny, flopped spectacularly and shows little sign of recovery.
With that said, however, SuperData notes that EA’s annual FIFA soccer series still maintains pole position as the publisher’s most profitable intellectual property. Fans can expect the gap between both to grow even narrower in the future, however, when the inevitable Season 4 rolls around.
Stay tuned for further announcements on that front.