It has been announced by Respawn Entertainment that an all-new studio is on the horizon – the third studio that the developer has opened. It’ll be situated in Madison, Wisconsin, and it’ll enable the team at Respawn to support Apex Legends ‘for 10 to 15 years’.
Reportedly, this studio will be led by Ryan Burnett, an industry icon coming over to Respawn from Epic Games. Before that, Burnett spent fourteen years working at Raven Software – so he has legs and he’s got plenty of experience working with battle royale platforms.
Apex Legends Is Here To Stay
Respawn’s all-new Wisconsin office will bolster the teams already working in Los Angeles and Vancouver, with a key desire to make Apex Legends ‘the premiere Battle Royale on the market.’
This was a sentiment echoed in the post that was published on Respawn’s news site today.
Midway through February, it was revealed in an interview with IGN that Respawn had a strong desire to keep Apex Legends alive ‘for twenty years’. In recent months, Apex Legends has gone from strength to strength, and since Call of Duty: Warzone started getting weak at the knees, Apex Legends has stood strong, ready to pick up the pieces.
It isn’t perfect, of course, but that’s why there’s a desire to stick at the game and really polish it, turning it into a world-class battle royale title. In a statement broken down by GamesIndustry.biz, Apex Legends’ director, Steven Ferreira, mirrored that sentiment:
Team health is absolutely a top priority for us because we’re in this for the long haul. We believe in Apex as a franchise that’s going to be around for 10, 15 years or more and we’re excited to make that happen. In order to do that, we can’t just put everything all upfront, burn ourselves out and not be ready to do that in the long haul.
Over time, Apex Legends as an ecosystem is expanding, from the esports scene surrounding the game to the competitive, ranked platform that exists within it. If there’s a plan within Respawn to keep the game fuelled and firing on all cylinders for ten to fifteen more years, it could outlive every other battle royale game currently on the market.
Time will tell.
For more Insider Gaming news, check out our coverage of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon RPG project.
