With the release of Apex Legends Mobile blowing up our phones this week, all we’ve been able to talk about so far is Apex. But if you’ve never really paid attention to console games or big publishers like Electronic Arts, you might be wondering, “Where on earth did this game come from?”

The story of Apex Legends is one of epic battles played out on a hellish battlefield in a future where soulless corporate overlords and media hype have made people’s lives into a sport. And the story of the game is pretty dark, too!

To really start from the beginning, we need to go back more than a decade. We need to go back to the frenetic days of 2009. At the time, mobile games were barely worth playing, much less coming close to the console or PC experience, and the world of multiplayer shooters was one thing. The only franchise that dominated was Call of Duty.

The Changing Face of Warfare

At the end of 2009, business partners Jason West and Vince Zampella were on top of the world. Infinity Ward, the studio they founded just after the turn of the century, is arguably one of the most successful developers in the world. The team’s fourth game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, was released on November 10, 2009, and sold almost 5 million copies in a single day.

Things only got better, right?

Records broken. Not so fast.

When West, president of Infinity Ward, and Zampella, CEO of Infinity Ward, moved on in 2010, they began negotiating a new contract with publisher Activision from a position of greater power. After all, they were the two heads of the development team that had just been responsible for “the biggest entertainment launch of all time,” as Activision was touting it. This dubious boast was thanks to the game’s astonishing first-day sales of $310 million, an incredible achievement with or without that record-breaking connection.

Despite the astounding sales figures, Activision didn’t think the future success of the Call of Duty series depended on West and Zampella continuing. The two demanded more funding and greater creative freedom going forward, but the publisher wasn’t particularly interested in providing these incentives.

In March 2010, contract negotiations completely failed. Activision accused West and Zampella of already negotiating with other publishers, which would have violated their current contract. After their appearances and legal threats had not yielded much, Activision used the alleged breach of contract as an excuse to fire West and Zampella from the studio and the mega-popular shooter series they had created.

The founders of Infinity Ward got to work without pretense. Just a month after being fired from Activision, they announced the formation of a new studio, Respawn Entertainment. Though the studio was still in its infancy, West and Zampella had already signed a deal with Activision’s rival Electronic Arts, and the studio’s first games were to be distributed by the company. Over the next few years, Respawn was staffed with new talent and dozens of former Infinity Ward colleagues ready for the new challenge.

(This has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the story here, but just to satisfy your curiosity: Shortly after being fired, Jason West and Vince Zampella sued Activision for wrongful termination, while Activision filed a lawsuit alleging that while they were still employed at Activision, they had conspired with rival publishers to poach top talent from the studio, and in May 2012, these two lawsuits were supposedly settled out of court with both parties agreeing to “confidential” terms. The terms included severance packages that were nice for West and Zampella, and Zampella retired from Respawn shortly after the lawsuit was resolved.)

The First Drop

Fans who were excited to see what Respawn Entertainment would produce didn’t have to wait long. In June 2013, at Electronic Arts’ E3 press conference, the studio unveiled the first trailer for its upcoming debut game, Titanfall. True to the studio’s strengths with a tradition of successful shooters, the new series was also meant to be a multiplayer shooter. But while the gunfights might look familiar to Call of Duty players, the setting was more sci-fi, and players were meant to experience a higher level of mobility on the battlefield.

And then there were the big weapons (literally). This is the final twist that really sets Titanfall apart from all the shooters that came before it: the Titans. These were giant, bipedal mech suits that could be summoned into multiplayer matches for players to ride and control. The Titans were a big selling point for Titanfall; explosive spectacle brought intense matches to a climax, giving players an epic fantasy of power-seeking.

In March 2014, nearly four years after West and Zampella were unceremoniously booted out of Infinity Ward, Respawn Entertainment released Titanfall. The game received mixed reviews from critics, though positive, but not very favorable reviews, but it was a hit among gamers. In May 2014, EA confirmed that it would continue its partnership with Respawn Entertainment for a “new Titanfall experience,” and in October 2015, EA boasted that Titanfall had sold 10 million copies.

One of the most talked-about elements of the first Titanfall was its unconventional approach to storytelling. While multiplayer has always been the biggest factor in the success of Call of Duty games, these titles still had single-player campaigns, usually lasting 7-10 hours, to give less competitive players a reason to check out the game. Something hardcore gamers could play when they needed a break from intense PvP shooting.

Titanfall, however, had no single-player mode. While it did have what Respawn called a “campaign,” its interspersed story was told through short cutscenes and character dialogue that played before, during, and after multiplayer matches. It was a unique idea, but it wasn’t enough to get players excited about the characters and concepts of this new franchise. Players and critics alike complained that they felt disconnected from the matches, and that it seemed odd and disjointed that things continued after a match was lost.
444 Though the difficulties of telling a story didn’t ultimately hold Titanfall back too much, it was still an issue Respawn wanted to address in the game’s inevitable sequel. But that project faced an entirely different challenge.

Critical Success, Sales Missteps

In March 2015, Vince Zampella attended the BAFTA Game Awards on the back of the excitement of Titanfall’s huge sales in a year, where Titanfall was nominated in three different categories. Although the game ultimately didn’t win any awards, Zampella was still in high spirits and casually acknowledged in an interview that Titanfall 2 was in development.

The official announcement of the sequel followed shortly thereafter, kicking off a year and a half long hype cycle for Titanfall 2, presenting every innovation and awakening fan enthusiasm. The biggest improvements promised included a more diverse multiplayer mode and a truly authentic single-player campaign with what the studio described as an epic and emotionally compelling story.

When Titanfall 2 was released in October 2016, players found that these promises were largely kept. The game received a lot of praise from critics for its fun and imaginative single-player mode, in which the player takes on the role of a border militia rifleman named Jack Cooper. In a classic heroic adventure, Cooper achieves his ambitious dream of becoming a Titan pilot with the help of an artificial intelligence called BT. While Cooper was a very generic shooter protagonist on his own, his interactions with BT added a sort of “buddy cop” dynamic that made both characters more likable in the long run.

Additionally, the single-player campaign also featured some very clever and dynamic level design. Missions were linear, similar to Call of Duty games, but there were more puzzles, forcing the player to think about his movements and how to get from one area to the next. The gaming experience was very satisfying, and this doesn’t even take into account the basic multiplayer mode, which has been significantly rebalanced and improved since the first game, which was well received by fans.

But despite such enthusiastic approval, Titanfall 2 had one big problem: its release date. Unlike the first game, which was released during a generally quiet spring, Titanfall 2 hit store shelves on October 28, 2016, exactly two months after the gaming industry released the most new games. EA’s own Battlefield 1 was released just a week earlier, on October 21, 2016. This year’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, developed by the still-active Infinity Ward of course, was released a week later on November 4th, 2016.

While the first game sold well, Titanfall 2 sat between two absolute titans of the shooter genre, both of which had been around for over a decade and guaranteed millions of copies. The second installment in this cool but relatively untested series, by a developer most gamers have never heard of (even if the founders were well-established), simply couldn’t keep up.

In a January 2017 investor statement, EA acknowledged that Titanfall 2 hadn’t met sales expectations, but declined to speculate on whether the release date was a significant part of the problem. The publisher never released exact sales figures for Titanfall 2, as it had for the first game, a sure sign that there’s not much to brag about. But Morgan Stanley analysts estimated that the game had sold 4 million copies. It was by no means a complete failure, but compared to the 10 million copies sold by the first game and the 15 million sold by EA’s Battlefield 1, it was a crushing disappointment.

In the months that followed, EA continued to reaffirm its commitment to Titanfall as a franchise and to Respawn Entertainment as a third-party partner, but the future seemed far more uncertain than at any point before the studio’s formation.

The Buyout

As history has shown, EA wasn’t just blowing hot air with friendly phrases. In November 2017, the publisher showed how much it valued the partnership by acquiring Respawn Entertainment outright for more than $400 million.

“Our longstanding partnership is based on a shared desire to push boundaries and bring exceptional and innovative new experiences to players around the world,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a statement at the time. He specifically mentioned the Titanfall series, but since it was already known at the time that Respawn was developing a game set in the Star Wars universe, many players were unsure if and when Titanfall would return.

In the same statement, Respawn CEO Vince Zampella said EA had been “a great partner through the tears of Titanfall and Titanfall 2” and boasted the move was “a great next step for Respawn, EA, and our players.” In fact, elsewhere in the acquisition announcement it was revealed that Respawn was working on “a new title in the Titanfall universe.”

As it turns out, players had nothing to worry about. But what Respawn did next with Titanfall would prove to be completely unexpected and successful on an entirely different level.

Reaching the Apex

After the release of Titanfall 2 in 2016, but before its acquisition by EA, Respawn Entertainment was lethargic and unsure of what direction the studio and its first and only original product should take. Instead of moving forward with development of Titanfall 3, the company split into small groups of developers, with each group working on a series of prototypes and test games. They wanted to determine the future of Titanfall, and were open to all kinds of new ideas. The prototypes these small groups created included a new multiplayer game mode that had never been tried before, and a proof-of-concept for a new single-player campaign.

It wasn’t long before one test mode clearly stood out above the others. Apparently inspired by the surprising success of a small-scale shooter called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a team of two designers created something they called “Survival.” In this multiplayer version of Titanfall, 24 pilots and Titans battled each other until only one remained.

After a month of internal testing, it was clear that “Survival” was something special. Many developers at Respawn were crazy about it. The studio hosted wild Friday Night Fight playtests, with winners recorded on a chalk leaderboard called the “Chikn DNR Board,” a clear nod to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Respawn quickly expanded the team working on Survival from two developers to 20, and was excited to see what would come with more resources.

In October 2017, with Respawn’s acquisition by EA imminent, the “Survival” prototype received a new twist that would become its defining feature: instead of playing as a generic pilot, players could now choose from three “Legends” who over time became recognizable characters among a large player base: Gibraltar, Bloodhound, and Wraith.

From there, the game quickly took shape. A month later, the Titans were removed from the game, apparently because they were too overpowered and played too important a role in the outcome of each match. The maximum player count was increased to 50, and the parkour-like wall-running from Titanfall games was removed to slow the game down. The mode was played on a single map that slowly morphed, eventually taking on its iconic form of Kings Canyon. And the studio also began experimenting with new mechanics, such as legendary abilities and teammate respawns, to further differentiate the game from other battle royale games that had just hit the market.

Respawn developers knew two things at this point. First, Survival wasn’t just a mode, it was its own game and deserved to be named as such. Second, even if they wanted to set the title in the Titanfall universe, it would obviously be something separate from the main game, or, in their words, “something fundamentally different from Titanfall.”

Respawn knew they had come up with a great idea, and they hoped gamers would be just as excited about it. They decided to cancel another project related to Titanfall and put all their resources into a game called Apex Legends.

The Ambush

While the team at Respawn Entertainment was hard at work on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the studio head and publisher Electronic Arts quickly recognized the opportunity with Apex Legends. It was to be Respawn’s first major launch as a studio fully owned and operated by EA. But Respawn wanted to handle this launch quite differently than usual in the industry.

On February 1, 2019, Respawn and EA invited a group of streamers, media representatives, and content creators to a secret event in Los Angeles, where the team gave a short presentation behind closed doors, showcasing Apex Legends to people outside the studio for the first time. While most game reveals like this end with a trailer and a chance to interview the developers, Respawn had another goal: they wanted everyone at this event to play the game right away.

A two-hour playtest turned into four, which turned into eight. Even at this reveal event, it was clear to everyone in attendance, even the most skeptical, that Respawn had a game that felt special and fully developed.

What was important was that it felt fully developed, because, as the developer revealed to a shocked crowd, the studio intended to announce and launch Apex Legends at the same time. And there were only a few days to go.

On February 4, 2019, Respawn revealed the existence of Apex Legends to the world, telling an impressed audience the same thing that streamers and media had been hearing: it’s available for download now. Go play it.

As Respawn was preparing for the game’s surprise launch, one of the studio’s engineers warned the rest of the team to have realistic expectations. “Don’t expect a million players right from the get-go, even in the first few months,” he warned. After all, the studio had already been bitterly disappointed with Titanfall 2’s performance. No one wanted to be disappointed again.

And so Apex Legends was released. It was a free, download-only battle royale for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, so there were almost no barriers to entry for players. Within seconds of launch, tens of thousands of players logged in for the first time. Within eight hours, a million players had downloaded and tested the game. Three days later, that number had risen to 10 million, the same astounding sales figure EA boasted for the first Titanfall.

At the end of February, Apex Legends surpassed 50 million players.

The scope and scale of the game’s success, and its impact on Respawn as a studio, cannot be understated. The developers were also shocked and pleased to find that many of the same streamers and YouTube video creators they invited to the reveal a few days earlier were still crazy about the game, dedicating content to it even weeks after release. In its first week, Apex Legends garnered over 11 million hours of views on Twitch, with an average audience of 183,089 and a peak audience of 491,894. It handily beat its biggest battle royale rival, Fortnite, to secure the top spot in Twitch viewership for the week.

Players flocked to matches and loudly praised the game. Fans especially loved the truly free-form nature of Apex Legends. The game released with eight playable characters, six of which were unlocked from the start; the other two didn’t require much effort to unlock, and virtually everything you could buy in-game via microtransactions was purely cosmetic.

Of course, Apex Legends also presented Respawn with a challenge it had never faced before: that of a live-service game. According to Respawn design director Mackey McCandlish, the studio wanted this to be a “10-year game” like League of Legends. While the launch was undoubtedly a success, the developers needed to figure out how to keep players hooked for years to come.

Passing Time

To keep players interested, Respawn wanted to aggressively schedule new and changing content. This began in March 2019, one month after the launch of Apex Legends, with the release of the game’s first official “season” and first Battle Pass. Similar to games such as Fortnite, players could join a Battle Pass and unlock various cosmetic rewards throughout the season by playing the game and completing challenges. This way, servers filled up and dedicated players had the chance to show off new stuff.

Like most Battle Pass systems, players could also choose to simply play for free and earn a handful of rewards without purchasing the full pass. For those on a budget, the Apex Legends Season 1 Battle Pass was released for 950 Apex Coins. A pack of 1,000 Apex Coins costs $9.99, so essentially the pass costs just under $10. Alternatively, players can purchase the “Battle Pass Bundle” for 2,800 Apex Coins, which instantly unlocks 25 levels of content in the pass. This price will remain the same throughout Apex’s lifespan.

While the Season 1 Battle Pass was a step in the right direction, it was criticized by the community when compared to battle passes in similar games such as Fortnite – games that have already had time to refine their own approach – it leaves a lot to be desired. Many felt that the cosmetic items offered as rewards in the Apex Legends Battle Pass were of poor quality and limited in quantity, with the best and most visually appealing cosmetic items obviously reserved for purchase in the store outside the pass. Some also pointed out that obtaining character skins through the Battle Pass has less impact in Apex Legends than it does in Fortnite, because Apex Legends is played in first-person perspective and players cannot see which skins they select while playing.

Whatever concerns there may be about the Battle Pass, no one can accuse Respawn of skimping on content. Each season of the game lasts about three to four months, and along with new Battle Passes and new cosmetics, each season introduces a new playable legend, as well as the usual new modes, new maps, new weapons, and major visuals. These include geographical redesigns of existing maps, major map balance changes, and social features.

Nevertheless, the developers wanted the Battle Pass to be more exciting for players. In response to criticism, they released a remastered version of the pass as part of Season 7 of Apex Legends in November 2020. This new system should be easier to track and provide more rewards for players. Unfortunately, Respawn found itself open to criticism once again. This time, players said the Battle Pass was too tedious. To make the pass last longer and keep players engaged throughout the season, the studio created a system that made players feel like they had to play nonstop to complete the pass in time.

To its credit, Respawn responded quickly. Shortly after the launch of Season 7 and the revamped Battle Pass system, Respawn’s communications and community director Ryan Rigney wrote the following in a Reddit thread:

Not a master of the controls. In fact, we messed it up. Today, in a meeting with a bunch of executives, Chad Grenier, our game director, said, “I played for six hours last night, why did I only get through one level?” And three other people agreed and basically said, ‘Yeah,’ and Reddit was right, this feels bad, and someone should have addressed this sooner.”

Major changes were made immediately, and excitement subsided over time. A large part of Apex Legends’ success is due to the fact that Respawn not only promised a very aggressive content plan, but also delivered on it, despite occasional clashes with players. Since the launch of Season 1 in March 2019, the studio has managed to maintain a pace of a new season every 3-4 months, with each new season bringing a new playable legend. As of May 2022, Apex Legends has just begun its 13th season, and the number of playable characters has increased from 8 at the start to 21 now. The studio also regularly adds limited-time holiday-themed events to keep players interested even later in the season cycle.

The best evidence of Apex Legends’ continuing success is the attention it continues to garner on streaming video platforms like Twitch. After a first month at the top, Apex has secured a regular spot on the top five lists of most played games, regularly reaching between 80,000 and 200,000 viewers, even in the absence of new content.

While Respawn wasn’t entirely successful with its two main Titanfall games, it has seen impressive and sustained success with Apex Legends. But the studio didn’t stop there, cementing its legacy.

The Move to Mobile

While Apex Legends has proven to be a true competitor to established competition like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on PC and consoles, it has still not stood out on mobile devices, a platform where these games have already made great strides.

After months of rumors and years of requests from fans, Respawn Entertainment finally announced in February 2021 that Apex Legends Mobile was in development. However, game director Chad Grenier at the time clarified that this would not be a 1:1 port of the PC/console version. Unlike Fortnite, it also will not offer cross-platform play or the ability for mobile players to team up or play against PC and console players.

“[Apex Legends Mobile is] built specifically for mobile, with optimized touchscreen controls and thoughtful optimization, resulting in the most advanced battle royale combat available on a phone,” Grenier said at the time. “This is a new version of Apex Legends, but one that’s faithful to the original game.”

As betas and regional testing opportunities came and went, players realized just how different the mobile version of Apex Legends actually is from its sibling. Early testing showed a slimmer list of characters, maps, and modes, and also seemed to suggest that Apex Legends Mobile would have its own version of a battle pass, rather than a shared pass between console/PC and mobile.

And here we are… Here we go! Apex Legends Mobile finally released this week after over a year of waiting. Players were quick to notice a number of differences from its predecessor.

Apex Legends Mobile released with only nine Legends from the original game’s current roster, but surprisingly also included a tenth Legend that was exclusive to mobile: Fade. Intended to be a surprise, Fade became the first Legend added to Apex Legends without an introductory trailer detailing his backstory. Instead, Apex Legends Mobile players will be able to unlock six of Fade’s lore pieces using special currency obtained from one of the launch events. The unexpected reveal of a new character not available in the console/PC version was a brilliant way to grab the attention of players who claim to have no interest in mobile games.

It’s still too early to give official numbers on the success of Apex Legends Mobile, but it’s safe to say that this is a really great mobile version of an already great game. For more information, check out the official test report. We don’t know exactly how many people are playing the game on Android and iOS, but according to Google Play Store, the game has already been installed over 10 million times in the first two days since its release.

According to EA’s fiscal 2022 fourth quarter earnings report, Apex Legends has made over $2 billion in revenue since its release in 2019. With the release of Apex Legends Mobile, an even larger audience will be able to watch the game on mobile devices around the world, giving the world every opportunity to grow its already impressive numbers.