Apex Legends sticks to seasonal updates: 'we don't want to overwork the team'

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Respawn's CEO discusses Apex' future.

Respawn CEO Vince Zampella discussed Apex Legends' cadence of updates at the GamesBeat Summit this week, noting that the studio's schedule is designed to give the team a strong quality of life. While he didn't mention the competition, this is in contrast to Fortnite, which has more frequent updates but is also facing accusations of brutal crunch.  

Seasonal updates were always the plan for Apex Legends, according to Zampella, and its sudden success hasn't changed that. 

“Our intention was to always be seasonal, so we’re kind of staying with that,” Zampella said. “The thought was ‘hey we kind of have something that’s blowing up here, do we want to start trying to drop more content?’ But I think you look at quality of life for the team. We don’t want to overwork the team, and drop the quality of the assets we’re putting out. We want to try and raise that.”

Unfortunately, Apex Legends' first season has been a bit disappointing, and it's in dire need of some better cosmetics. After all the leaks and rumours and build up, the launch of the first battle pass didn't make much of an impact, or at least not a positive one. Perhaps as a result, viewing figures have dropped by 75 percent. 

Season 2 will be larger, apparently, but Respawn has yet to decide how long seasons will be, and it's not going to make lots of changes before then.

Fraser Brown
Fraser Brown
Online Editor

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.