Apex Legends is Sticking With Seasonal Update to Not Overwork the Team, Respawn Founder Says

When Apex Legends first exploded onto the gaming scene earlier this year, Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella said early on that the developers would focus on more purposeful updates that would come out at a slower rate. Zampella elaborated on that decision at this week's GamesBeat Summit, explaining that it was also partly to maintain a healthy work-life balance for its devs.

"Our intention was to always be seasonal, so we're kind of staying with that," said Zampella. "The thought was 'hey we kind of have something that's blowing up here, do we want to start trying to drop more content?' But I think you look at quality of life for the team. We don't want to overwork the team and drop the quality of the assets we're putting out. We want to try and raise that."

Zampella's remarks came out on the same day that Polygon published a detailed report on the crunch culture at Fortnite developer Epic Games. The report details how the constant need for regular updates to Fortnite have led to an unhealthy workplace where employees could even be fired for refusing to work overtime.

Respawn Entertainment announced that it supported fewer updates early on with only meaningful balance updates to weapons and the overall meta. But Zampella also says the team is still trying to figure out the overall pacing for updates and content. Zampella admits that there will be trial and error and that even the length of seasons was a "total guess."

Considering Apex Legends is only two months old at this point, it speaks more to the rapid pace of online games that it feels like Apex Legends is lagging behind its competitors. But focusing on employee health is a good thing, and there's plenty of time for Respawn to figure out an update schedule that works for them.

Zampella also revealed that next season will try to have more content as one of the chief complaints of season one and the battle pass was how little there was to earn. For more on our coverage check out our Apex Legends guide.