When Apex Legends shadow-dropped seven years in the past this month, it was a really totally different sport. Its roster of characters, whereas nonetheless extra numerous than most FPS video games’ lineups, was restricted to only eight Legends, in comparison with the 26 to select from as Season 28 kicks off now in February 2026. It additionally seemed much more like Titanfall. Whereas the Apex Video games nonetheless happen inside Respawn’s iconic sci-fi universe, issues have moved on from the drab navy garb of earlier seasons, for higher and for worse.
Respawn began out as a splinter of ex-Infinity Ward builders, led by Jason West and the late Vince Zampella. After creating the Name of Responsibility franchise, the pair introduced extra of that gritty, grounded FPS juice to the far future with Titanfall, and Apex Legends began off as a trustworthy homage. Nonetheless, as the sport – and the workforce growing it – developed, we received fewer military bases and extra One Piece references. The catalyst for leaning into the whimsy? Gibraltar’s iconic polar bear pores and skin.
“We began out very Titanfall, very gray and brown, very critical navy,” says Apex Legends’ narrative lead, Ashley Reed, who has labored on the sport since earlier than it was launched. “It actually shook up the studio after we had been promoting the skins and the Gibraltar polar bear pores and skin blew each different one out of the water. […] There have been totally different colleges of thought inside the studio on the time. There have been the oldsters who had been the unique Titanfall individuals who beloved that very critical aesthetic, after which there have been the individuals who wished to be extra goofy and foolish.”
As you possibly can inform by the sport we have now at present, Crew Goofy gained. Reed factors out the variations between King’s Canyon and the slick vibrancy of later maps like Olympus and E-District – “that was by no means on the playing cards initially,” she says.
Nonetheless, that is to not say we’re getting Cardi B skins any time quickly. “Once we’re designing skins, we strive to bear in mind the persona of the Legend,” says lead Legend designer Brett Marting. “We’ve not at all times hit it completely, however more often than not we do attempt to maintain that in thoughts after we’re selecting a pores and skin for a personality, or a visible to match with them. We wish to hit their persona, in any other case it is going to really feel off for your entire immersion of all people taking part in the sport.”
Xander Morgan “at all times wished to work for” Infinity Ward after which Respawn, he tells me. That workforce, and its collective imaginative and prescient of what first-person shooters might and needs to be, was clearly inspiring for junior builders. Arriving within the Respawn workplace simply 4 weeks earlier than the pandemic hit and he was compelled to earn a living from home, Morgan has held quite a few roles inside the studio, however presently acts as dwell operations producer.
Morgan’s plan was to “attempt to simply soak up slightly little bit of the greatness that that workforce had and nonetheless has,” and in his six years on the studio has realized to adapt and overcome. It is this adaptation that’s so very important for live-service video games to thrive and survive, and that has served Respawn so effectively over the previous seven years.
“As a workforce we’re prepared to pivot and evolve with out dropping the core of taking part in Apex,” says Marting. “Apex is a motion shooter, it is a legend-based shooter. These are at all times the cornerstones we return to and it looks like we’re creating Legends that resonate with folks, they’ll relate to, and revel in dwelling with after they play the sport.”
Reed notes that Apex Legends has tailored to gamers’ altering tastes and to which technology of gamers it’s chatting with. The reception of Gibraltar’s polar bear pores and skin signalled that gamers wished funnier, goofier skins (and the quantity of airtime it receives in ALGS competitors exhibits that this recognition goes all the way in which to the very prime), and Respawn is comfortable to oblige. However there was additionally a altering of the guard on the studio, which has allowed the present workforce extra freedom to outline the sport with its personal visible id, reasonably than counting on Titanfall references and stylings.
“[Respawn] began out just about as Infinity Ward people,” Reed explains, “And even as much as Apex it was very closely Infinity Ward people. And in the previous couple of years that is modified, the entire panorama of the dev workforce has modified.”
“So it turns into, ‘what sort of sport can we need to make? What sort of sport speaks to the legacy?’ As a result of we very a lot respect the unique people that had been at Respawn – we’re just about their protégés. They introduced us up. So how do we feature ahead that legacy but in addition make one thing that is our personal? Apex has remodeled by the individuals who have labored on it and the individuals who we’re making it for.”
With seven years of expertise to look again on, the present crop of Respawn builders are clearly dedicated to doing proper by the gamers in addition to the devs who laid the groundwork for one of the vital profitable video games of the previous decade and live-service increase. As for the subsequent seven years, who’s to say what would possibly occur? Just one factor’s for positive: the workforce’s ardour has by no means wavered and would not look to any time quickly. “We do it as a result of we love the craft,” says Morgan. “And we love seeing folks benefit from the sport.” So seize a slice of birthday cake, don your silliest pores and skin, and drop in as sizzling as you dare.
