It’s no secret that Apex Legends has been losing ground. The game blew up massively during its surprise release earlier this year, hitting 50 million players in one month. However, it has since fallen to titles like Fortnite and other battle royales due to their consistent updates. But, in a recent Apex Legends blog post, Respawn Entertainment notes that they are “100% committed” to the long-term growth of the game.
A lot of the post details how Respawn is tackling the live service theme of the game: What it will bring, what the developers have been working on, and more. Of course, launching a new game to millions of players will introduce bugs, cheaters, and other issues. While the team has been making “good progress” towards fixing these, the community has felt it’s not enough. Respawn wants to address that.
One thing the studio made sure to mention is the server issues at the beginning of most matches. Weirdly, this hits some areas more than it does others. It seems that while the server load is properly distributed, one machine seems to do more work than the others. Respawn is trying to figure out why, and this is the studio’s number one priority right now.
Hit registration is another big problem. Right now the team is bringing in engine adjustments that track and report hit issues for examination. The goal right now is to constantly reproduce the bug so they can properly look at it. Some fixes are making good progress, but they need more data. Cheaters are another big topic, but we’ll receive more news on that next week.
Of course, the post emphasizes that team health takes place over game updates. The developers are excited to bring us new content, but they aren’t going to crunch for it. This is why they’re recommitting to the slow, thoughtful update approach instead of Fortnite‘s weekly one. That said, we did learn that every new season will have “a new Battle Pass, a new Legend, something new for the meta, and more.”
Players were a bit disappointed with Apex’s first Battle Pass, which didn’t include many exciting unlocks. We can expect that feedback to factor into the next one. That said, everyone loves Octane, the new legend, and we can only hope Respawn’s next legends will be just as good.
