Respawnwants to take the meaning of ongoing development to another level, keepingApex Legendsalive for up to 15 years. Very few live services stand a chance of making this a reality, but the Apex devs want us to still be playing the game more than a decade from now, and are already making plans in aid of this.
This news comes as Respawn opens its third studio for Apex Legends development, as the company vice president admits that keeping up with demands is “no easy feat”. However, it also comes asEA lays off 200 Apex Legends QA devs, suggesting a significant change of strategy rather than just ramping up production.
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“We believe in Apex as a franchise that’s going to be around for 10, 15 years or more and we’re excited to make that happen,” says game director Steven Ferreira (thanks,Gameindustry.biz). “to do that, we can’t just put everything all upfront, burn ourselves out and not be ready to do that in the long haul.”
Ferreira goes on to say that Respawn’s main focus is avoiding crunch during this long development cycle, and that “team health is absolutely a top priority.” This has been a policy for some time, particularly noteworthy when other developersEAworks with havefailed to live up to this ideal. Even in the early 2000s, EA was coming under fire for overworking its employees, although Apex Legends hasn’t faced similar criticism.
Of course, even if Respawn can stick to this 15-year pledge, it might not be with the same old Apex we’ve been playing for years now already. As we’ve recently seen withOverwatch 2, live services can opt for a soft sequel that introduces a bunch of improvements and changes to the game at once, more so than any other seasonal update. No such plans have been made for Apex yet, but the opening of a new studio might suggest that something is on the way. Most likely when other Respawn projects likeStar Wars Jedi: Survivorare out of the way.
