Since the launch of the game, Respawn has been relatively quiet about potential upcoming Apex Legends features and content. Details on the game’s Season 1 and Battle Pass came just days before their release, for example. Similarly, the studio barely released any promotional material for Octane, the game’s first post-launch character. Now, a Respawn dev has explained some of the reasoning behind this apparent reticence.
Why Respawn Avoids Releasing Info About Potential New Apex Legends Features
Recently, Respawn developer Brent Mcleod took to Reddit to address Respawn’s lack of communication concerning upcoming Apex Legends features. Mcleod also explained on a separate thread why calls by fans to region-lock the game in China wouldn’t solve the problem of Chinese hackers. On the former issue, Mcleod states that Respawn devs are wary of promising content which they can’t deliver. (Or at least, can’t deliver anytime soon.)
“As to why I don’t give specific answers about unannounced or requested features (like alternate modes),” he explains; “far too often it’s unwise to do so. Just mentioning this kind of stuff gets taken as a promise. The timeline starts the moment it’s mentioned… and everyone has a different expectation of what’s a reasonable timeline… and many people heavily underestimate what is required.”
Mcleod goes on to point out that any such mention of new content would likely get picked up by blogs and gaming news sites. (Extremely likely.) While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, the issue is that it could result in, as he describes; “a bad game of telephone,” where lines are taken out of context or misquoted and spread online. As a result, fans could end up with a warped perception of a supposedly planned feature.
Although Mcleod does admit that his take is; “somewhat cynical,” he does have a point. Even if gaming news sites cover an announcement accurately, the discussion around a game’s future features often grows out of proportion on social media, or on smaller blogs and sites with less editorial rigour. As such, and given that the Respawn developers didn’t expect Apex to grow so large so fast, a modicum of caution certainly seems like a good idea.