“Apex 2.0” is on the horizon, says EA boss, but it probably won’t happen until after Battlefield 6

Sci-fi battle royale Apex Legends is due a “meaningful update” , according to the CEO of Electronic Arts, something he’s called “Apex 2.0”. To a normal person, adding a 2 to the end of your game’s name is the sign of a sequel. But as the attendant decimal and zero suggest, it’s not clear if that’s exactly what he means. It could mean a revamp with new features, or some other new direction for the existing game. His later words do make it sound more like this is what EA have in mind. Or at least what they’re prepared to tell folks in a financial report.

CEO Andrew Wilson made the comments in an earnings call for EA’s quarterly financial results, the sad phone call where numbers go to be interrogated.

“[On] a longer-term time horizon, there will be an even bigger, more meaningful update to that broader game experience. An Apex 2.0, if you will. This will not be the final incarnation of Apex,” he said.

The Apex update “will probably happen after a Battlefield launch,” he added. A reference to the the as-yet untitled Battlefield 6, which the publisher has been teasing recently. Elsewhere in the call Wilson said that wartorn shooter is expected to launch before April 2026.

Previously, Wilson dismissed the idea of a “2.0” version of the game, as reported by Gamesindustry.biz. But it looks like he feels differently now? Ah, the winds of business are ever swooshing. Despite Apex Legends still being one of our best battle royales, EA aren’t content with how the first-person shooter has been doing in recent times, it seems.

“We’ve had over 200 million people play the game,” said Wilson. “However, the trajectory of the business of that franchise has not been headed in the direction that we have wanted for some time.

“[We] continue to try and test and develop more great content for that community. And I would say we have seen some progress in that, but probably not as much as we would have liked.”

Of course, none of that means Apex Legends is going anywhere. The company still sees the series as a valuable bit of corpo-loot. Wilson himself says that “franchises that exist at this level and have this much fan love don’t come along all that often.”

Since appearing in 2019, Apex has gone through many years of updates, changes, and additions. It recently added a throwback mode which simply reminded our James how much better it got over time. When I learned that Respawn were developing a battle royale all those years ago, my first thought was: “God, not another one”. But it turned out to be my favourite in the entire genre. Whatever happens to Apex next, it’s probably worth watching.