Apex Legends could get Fortnite-style game-changing live events someday

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

Apex Legends is an excellent battle royale, but one thing it doesn't offer (that some of its competitors do) is live events that actually change the course of the game. When Fortnite's Marvel themed season 4 came to a Galactus-fueled finish, for instance, the whole thing wrapped up in a big-ass in-game event; by comparison, the arrival of Fuse in Apex Legends and all the changes it wrought unfolded entirely through cinematic trailers like the one up above.

Respawn could bring that sort of live game-changer to Apex Legends in the future, design director Jason McCord told Rock, Paper, Shotgun in a recent interview, but if it happens—and it sounds like a pretty big if—it won't be anytime soon.

"We have talked about things like that, a lot, I think that there is... I'll keep it nice and clean, I think there's a possibility that you could see it someday," McCord said. "It's an exciting opportunity to do something like that in-game. But it's a ton of effort for one moment, and that's sort of the thing we've gotta get just right. We've gotta make sure that if we do something like that it's really coming in at the right time."

That could be seen as a fit with Respawn's overall approach to the development of Apex Legends. While Epic Games has previously faced accusations of "brutal crunch" for employees working on Fortnite, which maintains a relatively high-speed rate of updates and major live events, Apex moves at a slower pace. Respawn CEO Vince Zampella said in 2019 that the studio was sticking with a schedule of seasonal updates in order to avoid overworking the team, and game director Chad Grenier shared a similar sentiment just a few months ago, saying in November 2020 that "we also refuse to crunch the team, so we'll probably be slower at making content than if we worked 15 hour days."

"That's just not something we're willing to do," Grenier said at the time. "We have nearly doubled our team size since launch to accommodate the content demands, so we're really trying to bring you quality content at a healthy pace."

Along similar lines, world director Eduardo Agostini told RPS that it's likely players will see more changes to the game's existing maps before another new one rolls around: "To put out a brand new map takes a lot of effort, so in the meantime we have the luxury of revisiting our existing maps and doing smaller, more meaningful changes to them that can still give everyone a fresh experience," he said.

That holds true for potential new vehicles as well. Apex Legends' first, the Trident hovercars, were added in season 7 along with the new Olympus map, and while McCord allowed that others could follow, "it'd be way in the future."

Apex Legends season 8 begins tomorrow, February 2.

Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Latest in Battle Royale
Shohei Ohtani wearing Samurai Shohei outfit in Fortnite
The best baseball player alive is coming to Fortnite, and so is his dog
Fortnite jacked Peter Griffin
Parents are suing Epic over Fortnite item shop 'FOMO' timers they say are inaccurate and manipulative
talk to the joneses fortnite
Epic's war against the Fortnite fraudsters sees it simultaneously name and shame alleged ne'er-do-wells as its high-powered lawyers sue them
Twisted Metal - Sweet Tooth
Apparently the canceled Twisted Metal game would have been a battle royale where you could get out of your car for some reason
talk to the joneses fortnite
Epic will give Fortnite cheaters 'a second chance' with a new, more forgiving ban policy, as long as they didn't do anything too awful or illegal
Fortnite skin for Master Chief from Halo
Don't stress, Epic Games says you can still unlock Fortnite's Xbox-exclusive Master Chief skin
Latest in News
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway