Apex Legends has one of the healthiest ecosystems in the live-service sphere, maintaining a dedicated playerbase and a booming esports scene over five years after release. As can be observed by the release of Counter-Strike 2 and Overwatch 2, a few live-service publishers are opting to release full sequels to try and grow or regrow their playerbases. According to EA's chief executive officer, Andrew Wilson, that's not the approach EA will take (thanks, IGN).
At a recent earnings call with investors, Wilson fielded questions about Apex Legends and EA's live-service models. He recognises that live-service games need "meaningful systematic innovation that fundamentally change the way the games play," which does sound a lot like a complete rebuild, but that's not what he has in mind.
A follow-up question to Wilson explicitly asked if the team was working on a "systematic rethink of Apex," and the executive clarified that "Apex 2.0" is not in the company's current plans.
"Typically, what we have seen in the context of live service-driven games at scale is the 'version two' thing has almost never been as successful as the 'version one' thing," Wilson began. "So actually the objective right...
