Don’t expect an Overwatch 2-style Apex Legends 2 – EA boss says “the version 2 thing has almost never been as successful as version 1”

Don’t expect an Apex Legends 2 anytime soon – or ever, in fact, as EA’s boss is actively opposed to the idea of forcing players to choose between “investments they’ve made” and a new version.

During EA’s most recent investor’s call, company CEO Andrew Wilson was asked about the battle royale’s supposed underperformance and whether an Apex 2.0 might be a better solution as opposed to fixing a car already in motion, so to speak. “In the context of live service driven games at scale, the version two thing has almost never been as successful as the version one thing,” he responded.

Wilson obviously isn’t referring to traditional multiplayer sequels – your Halo 2s, yearly Call of Duties, and Battlefield: Subtitles. He’s instead talking about the recent trend in live service games where companies will market a game-wide overhaul with a ‘2’ at the end. Think Overwatch 2, Counter-Strike 2, Smite 2. Games that are more akin to really big updates rather than full-fat sequels.

EA and developer Respawn’s “objective right now” is instead to innovate on a season-by-season basis “in a way that players do not have to give up progress that they’ve made or the investments that they’ve put into the existing ecosystem.” The CEO reckons that “anytime we cause a global player community to have to choose between the investments they’ve made to date and future innovation, creativity, that’s never a good place to put our community in.”

Wilson continued to say that the team doesn’t need to “separate the experience in order to” innovate outside of seasonal content, though it’s something the developers are still “working through” at the moment. 

Apex Legends had plans to overhaul its seasonal strategy, but Respawn quickly walked back the controversial changes after intense player backlash and tens of thousands of negative user reviews. The battle royale game now has two battle passes per season, and the developer pledged it would focus on the things players cared about most: “cheaters, game stability, and quality of life updates are top of mind.”

See where Apex Legends lands in our best battle royale games ranking.