For Respawn Entertainment and more importantly Electronic Arts, retention for Apex Legends has been a continued pursuit over the past year. While a decline has been recorded in that period, things are looking to be showing gradual growth. The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth event did show a jump in player activity. And, of course, this is an effort it will continue to establish with its live-service venture generating roughly 3/4 of the firm’s revenue as of this past fiscal year.
So when it comes to Apex Legends, an evolution of the game is required for players to continue returning. In Season 20 – Breakout, this has been evident for the most part. And this is just the beginning in 2024. Lead writer Ashley Reed told that many of its lore will breach into the gameplay loop throughout this year to bring a more connected experience.
Previously when speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, and transcribed by Video Game Chronicle, the publisher spoke on Apex Legends and this pursuit for continued retention for the next decade.
If you’re thinking about streaming services which are dealing with 40% and 50% churn, we’ve got a core community in Apex that has 75% retention over the course of a five-year period – it’s an incredible franchise. But in the growth of franchises, we do see ebbs and flows, and where we’ve gotten to with Apex, is we’ve got that first cohort of community that have been with us now for five years, and it’s big, it’s large, it’s global and it’s deeply engaged.
Andrew Wilson, Electronic Arts CEO
“It’s an incredible game, it’s a core game, it’s not for the faint of heart when you come into it, and that’s part of its charm and part of why people love it. But job number one for us is, how do we make that a little more new player friendly? And that’s what you’re starting to see, you’re starting to see it with Season 20, which is really built around how do we drive more acquisition and more engagement,” he said.
“And I would say the early signs of that have been very promising. We’re starting to see numbers that are more like the numbers that we’d seen at the peak. The next phase will then be, how do we think about more modalities of play, how do you expand beyond the traditional battle royale universe? And we’ll start to see that in the coming year.”
Surely, the expansion outside of Apex Legends traditional battle royale is welcomed. With some game modes already shaking the cage with conventional game types, more of that is a nice change of pace. And with a promise to be operating for more than a decade, players will look for new ways to play and for new users to find variety in such a huge IP. You can read the full report by heading here.
Do you think Apex Legends can breach beyond its battle royale heritage?
Apex Legends is out for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
