Respawn Entertainment has announced the opening of its third studio, with the aim of keeping battle royale shooter Apex Legends running for another “10 to 15 years.”
Owned by EA, the developer was originally founded in 2010 by former Call of Duty developers and rose to fame with the release of Titanfall in 2014. Now, in 2023, Respawn is developing the upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, while continuing to work on its free-to-play Apex Legends.
In a detailed interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Respawn said that its new studio will be located in Madison, Wisconsin, and plans to bring in more talent to work on Apex Legends.
Greg Wilson, Vice President of Respawn and General Manager of Apex, said: “Producing content at the scale and speed required by Apex is no easy task. So we have been working hard to bring in more talent, more experience, more ideas, more ability……”
Leading the new team is Ryan Burnett, formerly Director of Engine Production at Epic Games. “When I look at the Apex series, I think it’s one of the best,” Burnett said. Another thing we do really well is that all the legends we have have a deep story, lore, and history. “
While Respawn’s official statement described the new studio as focusing on live service development, Burnett was quick to debunk this in interviews. The new studio is said to be an extension of Apex Legend’s core development team and will work closely with other studios in Vancouver and Los Angeles.
In even worse news, however, EA just recently fired 200 of its Apex Legends QA contractors and canceled the mobile version of the game. When asked about the cancellation of the mobile game, Greg Wilson shared, “There are so many platters that have to be spun to keep the live service game running, and running well, and continuing to deliver great content to players. The pace of consumption is so fast, The bar for success is so high that we can’t maintain the level of quality we expect our players to deserve. So that person is wrapped up. Makes sense.
As for those affected by the layoffs, EA’s comment to GamesIndustry.biz simply said the company is committed to “how we scale development across all Apex Legends teams to serve our global player base.”
Respawn co-founder and CEO Vince Zampella stepped in to answer when it came to the lifecycle of Apex Legends and what new content is coming. “There are some things that take us over two years to do in the game from start to finish.”
“Team health is definitely our number one priority because we’re committed to it for the long term. We believe Apex will be around as a franchise for 10, 15 years or more and we’re excited to make that happen. To make it happen , we can’t put everything first and it burns us out,” Zampella said.
Game director Steven Ferreira added that Apex Legends is currently in “an interesting moment.” He continued, “For example, the game has become more difficult, and it has become more difficult for new players to join the community, but we still have a large number of new players every season, so one of the big drivers that we are working on is accessibility. ”
Last but not least, Ferreira concluded that the team had some grand ideas for Apex. “I think it’s very strong at its core and we can learn from it, but we’re so far ahead now that I can’t share any details.”
That’s great news for keen Apex Legends players who have no intention of ditching their favorite shooter anytime soon. Only time will tell what the true future of Apex Legends is, however, players did get a Deathmatch mode a few weeks ago!
Check out the full interview on GamesIndustry.biz to learn more.
