Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends has seen its ups and downs since launching last year. However, the free to play battle royale title is doing pretty well with Season 4: Assimilation and a new Legend coming in February. But what about the mobile version of the game that was announced back in May 2019?
For that matter, what of the game’s launch in China? In a Q&A session following its third quarter earnings report, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen finally provided some updates. “Rolling mobile out in China, you need to have a partner, and we’re — as we’ve said in the prepared remarks today — we’re working with a partner there, and we’re very excited about the opportunity. That partner is also helping us develop a mobile Apex for the globe — more to come on that in terms of timing.”
Considering that Apex Legends made up 77 percent of EA’s total net bookings and drove growth in digital net bookings, it makes sense that the publisher would continue investing in it. But the mobile version and launch in China can become trickier as time passes by. The battle royale genre is still fairly popular but it’s mostly due to the big names like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Whether there’s a heavy demand for the title on mobile or in China, regardless of how entrenched its competitors are, is also unknown. Regardless, we’ll see how things pan out over the coming year. In the meantime, it’s possible that Apex Legends will be coming to the next generation of consoles. Though Jorgensen didn’t outright confirm the same, he did note that EA’s games for the PS5 and Xbox Series X will “blow people’s minds.”