Apex Legends is now over 4 years previous and heading into Season 16, which is sort of the feat given the live-service recreation bubble appears to be like able to burst. Going into Season 16, Respawn is shifting its priorities for the sport to be able to make sure the Apex Legends staff is not simply including new content material for the sake of it. The staff needs to keep away from including a lot that they design the battle royale into an inescapable nook and their solely alternative is to sundown the sport after which create Apex Legends 2.
“I believe what’s basic to the philosophy that [design director] Evan [Nikolich’s] been speaking about is that our aim is that we do not wish to be simply placing out content material for the sake of placing out content material,” recreation director Steve Ferreira informed GameSpot in an interview discussing the four-year historical past of Apex Legends.
“One, we wish to have an effect on the sport, however two, we wish to guarantee that we’ve not forgotten the sport holistically. [We don’t want to] slowly put the sport right into a state the place the one possibility for us to do the following factor we wish to do is to refactor the entire thing and shut the dwell recreation down after which launch Apex Legends 2. That is our anti-vision.”
Clearly, Apex Legends probably will not go on eternally. In some unspecified time in the future, the servers for the always-online multiplayer recreation may very well be shut down and at that time, the sport will not be playable anymore. However the staff is planning to have Apex Legends go on for so long as they’ll and keep away from releasing a sequel live-service recreation in the identical vein as Future 2 or Overwatch 2.
“Whereas we do not have a date in mind–and, to your level, I do not assume something lives forever–in our minds, Apex goes to proceed on for positively so long as any of us are going to work on it, after which the following folks, and subsequent folks,” Ferreira mentioned. “We consider it as a unending factor, however to be able to get there, I believe we do need to a minimum of clearly consider in our method, which is ensuring that we’re making the modifications to the sport once they’re prepared and once we want these issues to land versus simply hitting a components of content material that gamers anticipate.”
Nikolich factors to Apex Legends’ aggressive core as a possible indicator of the sport’s longevity. “What units Apex up for potential success eternally at its core is the aggressive nature of its gameplay,” Nikolich informed GameSpot. “It’s a competitors. And video games which have stood the take a look at of time–and I am speaking about all games–are aggressive video games. Chess is certainly one of them, for instance. Chess as a recreation is rarely going to go away. And so whereas we’re removed from being chess, so long as we do our greatest to maintain tending to that [competitive side of players], specializing in the core of the sport and constructing the programs round it to continue to grow it and hold it participating, Apex may final eternally.”
Apex Legends Season 16 is a perfect on-ramp for brand spanking new gamers, kicking off February 14. The season is the primary to not add a brand new playable character to Apex Legends and as an alternative makes giant modifications to seven legends and reworks class perks.
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