According to the game’s Executive Producer and Lead Product Manager, there will never be an Apex Legends sequel. However, that’s not to say that Respawn plan to give up on the game. In fact, the studio is apparently sitting on months and months of upcoming content which is still in various stages of development.
Why Respawn Will Never Make an Apex Legends Sequel
Drew McCoy, Executive Producer of Apex Legends, was recently interviewed by USGamer following E3, during which he was asked about the potential of an Apex Legends sequel. According to McCoy, Respawn never plans to make one; “We’re never gonna make an Apex 2,” he says. However, this isn’t due to Respawn planning to abandon the franchise at some stage. It seems that the studio is viewing the game’s seasonal launches as a way to continually improve and add new content to the game, long-term. McCoy points out that fans often don’t realise how long it takes to develop content, and that as a result, Respawn has very long-term plans.
“I mean, most people don’t realise how long it takes to make anything,” he explains; “and so a character for us takes about a year and a half to make. So we’ve been playing Wattson since early last year, but we have so much stuff in the pipe right now coming that people are always like, ‘So, what are you guys gonna do for this or that?’ Like dude, we’re thinking years ahead at this point. We do believe in this game as a live game. We’re never gonna make an Apex 2; hoping next Season 72 is awesome. That’s kind of where our head if at; how are we setting this up for the long term.”
This echoes what was said in a major update post from Respawn a few months ago. That post reassured fans that the studio wouldn’t be abandoning Apex to focus on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. In fact, that post also stated that Respawn wouldn’t sacrifice the wellbeing of their staff with crunch just to rush out new content. As a result, new Apex Legends content is likely to remain season-based. Season 2 is set to bring a lot of new things to the game very soon. However, it sounds as though Respawn has a lot in the works beyond that.