With Apex Legends having launched just a few days ago, EA has officially entered the battle royale genre. While the game seems to be raking in players, there’s another battle royale mode/game looming on the horizon from the publisher, and it’s none other than Battlefield V’s battle royale mode called Firestorm.
During EA’s earnings call, the publisher was asked by Mike Hickey of Benchmark whether there’s any “tension” between Apex Legends and Battlefield V’s battle royale mode.
Mike Hickey: First I guess on Apex Legends, I guess congrats what an awesome deal, it’s really hard to be surprised and your marketing efforts there were — from Respawn were definitely exceptional buzz is high, I guess looks like Respawn also has a fair amount of work done on a content roadmap we have sustained some engagement, I was curious how you think maybe longer-term in extensions Mobile Asia, esports related to Apex in the Battle Royale genre. And also curious if you feel that there might be a tension between the Battlefield, Battle Royale experience and one that you just served with Apex Legends? Thanks.
Andrew Wilson (EA CEO): And to the second part of your question around Battlefield Firestorm, we think that these while they sit inside the Battle Royale kind of genre, two very different types of experiences. What we’ve seen is the community who want to play these types of games is hundreds of millions of people strong. We think there is an opportunity to deliver the fast-paced play that is Apex Legends and where that game goes to a big part of the community. And then also the strategic play, the vehicle play, the things are unique to a Battlefield Battle Royale mode will offer differentiation of play for a different part of that community, and at some level there may also be some cross over. But given the size of the community, given the very different types of gameplay even inside the Battle Royale genre, we believe those two modes can fit very well together in the community.
Wilson has a point, no? They are both battle royale games, but Apex seems to be the more arcade-y battle royale experience. Of course, we haven’t played a second of Firestorm yet, but we’ll soon get our hands on it as it’s set to launch this March.
Remember when we posted that Apex Legends had over two million players yesterday? Well, it seems they’re close to three million! In the same call, Wilson mentioned that the game was trending “past towards 3 million unique users,” and nearly 600,000 peak and current users in the middle of a Tuesday!
Well it is early, what I can say is that in the first 24 hours we had over 2.5 million unique users trending past towards 3 million unique users and nearly 600,000 peak and current users kind of in the middle of a Tuesday, so it’s very early but the response to the game has been very, very strong. We’ve been the number one views game on Twitch since launch and player sentiment seems to be very, very high right now. – Andrew Wilson
If Apex Legends can maintain this momentum or even close to it, then Fortnite really ha a new competitor that it should be worried about.
For battle royale fans, will you try Battlefield V’s battle royale mode? Do you think the two games’ can co-exist without cannibalizing each other’s playerbase?
