Following the launch of Season 17 “Arsenal” of the game, Electronic Arts (EA) CEO Andrew Wilson has stated that Apex Legends IP crossovers are not “off the table” as the franchise looks to grow and expand over the next decade. However, no specific plans were revealed for such a collaboration.
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Following a period of resurgent popularity in which it broke its concurrent player count record on Steam with 610K concurrent players, coupled with a 20% rise in engagement in Season 16 compared to Season 15, Apex Legends was declared “front and center” vis à vis EA’s business model by Wilson during the company’s Q4 2023 earnings call. However, unlike the rest of the shooter industry, the Titanfall spinoff battle royale has largely not collaborated with other franchises for crossover content in the four years of its existence. Responding to a question about the possibility of full-scale IP crossovers and their strategic value for Apex, Wilson stated:
I think what you’ve heard from us, and certainly the performance in Q4 is testament to this, is Apex is one of the strongest franchise in our industry and certainly one of our strongest franchise when we talk about content as a platform, a game experience as a platform, Apex is certainly front and center as we think about our business model. We have a substantial player base with incredible retention. And as is the nature of these free-to-play environment, there are ebbs and flows. And I think what is unique to Apex is its ability to engage and reengage through those ebbs and flows.
We’re going to continue to invest in the IP broadly, both geographically from a platform, extending play, extending story. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think anything is off the table. I think that as we think about game IP today, it’s kind of like comic book IP of 20 or 30 years ago. This is the IP that Gen Z and Gen Alpha perhaps identify mostly with, and I think the opportunities for us to continue to grow and expand and stretch the nature of the experiences that we’re able to offer to our global player base over the next decade and beyond is unfettered.
The game’s ties to its parent Titanfall franchise have too remained largely unexplored, though a text string with a list of Titanfall maps was datamined in Apex Legends last year. However, no such crossover has yet materialized, and players will likely have to wait for quite a while before a larger Apex Legends crossover event materializes. Stay tuned here at MP1st for all upcoming Apex Legends news and announcements.
Source: Seeking Alpha (login required)