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Respawn Entertainment has announced the opening of its third studio, with the intentions of keeping battle-royale shooter, Apex Legends, running for another “10 to 15 years.”
The developer, owned by EA, was initially founded by former Call of Duty developers in 2010, rising to fame with the release of Titanfall in 2014. Now, in 2023, Respawn is working on the upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, while continually working on its free-to-play title, Apex Legends.
In a detailed interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Respawn shares that it’s new studio will be located in Madison, Wisconsin, with plans to bring in more talent to work on Apex Legends.
Respawn vice president and Apex general manager, Greg Wilson, shares that, “Producing content on the scale and pace that Apex requires is no easy feat. So we are always working to bring in more talent, more experience, more ideas, more capabilities…”
Leading the new team is Ryan Burnett, who was formerly the director of engine production at Epic Games. ”When I look at the Apex franchise, I think it’s one of the best out there,” says Burnett. “We’re best in class when you look at other battle royale competitors in terms of movement and gameplay. The other thing we do really well is there’s a deep story, lore, and history with all the Legends we have.”
While Respawn’s official announcement describes the new studio as focused on live services development, Burnett is quick to debunk this in the interview. The new studio is said to be an expansion of Apex Legend’s core development team, and will be working closely alongside the other studios in Vancouver and Los Angeles.
In darker news, however, EA just recently laid off 200 QA contractors on Apex Legends, and cancelled its mobile rendition of the game. When asked about the mobile game’s cancellation, Greg Wilson shared that, “There are so many plates that have to spin to keep a live service game running, and running well, as well as continuing to feed great content to players. The pace of consumption is so fast, and the bar for success is so high, that we weren’t able to keep that one going at the level of quality that we expect, that our players deserve. So that one got wrapped up.” Makes sense.
As for those affected by layoffs, EA’s comment to GamesIndustry.biz simply stated that the company is dedicated to “how we can scale development across all the Apex Legends teams to serve our global player base.”
When it comes to the lifespan of Apex Legends and what new content is to come, Respawn co-founder and CEO Vince Zampella steps in to answer. “There are some things we work on that take more than two years to get from beginning to end in-game.”
“Team health is absolutely a top priority for us because we’re in this for the long haul. 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. In order to do that, we can’t just put everything all upfront, burn ourselves out,” says Zampella.
Steven Ferreira, the game’s director, adds that Apex Legends is currently at “an interesting point.” He continues, “for example, the game has gotten a lot harder, and it’s become a lot more difficult for new players to join into the community, but we still have a ton of new players every season, so one of the big pushes that we’re looking at is accessibility.”
Last, but not least, Ferreira concludes that the team has some big ideas for Apex. “I think it’s so strong at its core that it has a lot of possibilities for where we can take the experience, but now we’re looking so far ahead that I can’t share any details.”
This is good news for keen Apex Legends players who have no intentions of dropping their favourite shooter anytime soon. Only time will tell what the future truly holds for Apex Legends, however, players did get a Deathmatch mode a few weeks back!
Check out the full interview with GamesIndustry.biz for more.