Apex Legends will ‘probably expand beyond battle royale’, says game director

Respawn Entertainment will “probably” expand Apex Legends “beyond battle royale” in the future.

In an interview with Eurogamer, game director Chad Grenier said the studio regularly discusses taking the free-to-play game in new directions.

“Right now we’re a battle royale game,” he said. “I think if you look into the future, we have a lot of conversations of, you know, should we expand beyond battle royale? We have this roster of legends that people love – how else can we use them?

“I think looking into the future, you’re probably going to see the game becoming more than just a battle royale game. You see we have all these LTMs and other ways to play. I think that’s a great starting point.”

Grenier was speaking ahead of the launch of Apex Legends Season 7 – Ascension on November 4. On Friday publisher EA released a new Apex Legends gameplay trailer (above) showcasing Season 7’s key features including new Legend Horizon, an astrophysicist with a mastery of gravity.

Season 7 also introduces the game’s third major map, Olympus, and a hovercraft called the Trident. Olympus is a floating city in the clouds which Grenier said originally started life as a Titanfall 3 concept.

Finally, there’s a new social feature called Clubs, which makes it easier to form a community and lets players send club-wide party invites. Respawn has detailed the new feature in a blog post.

EA announced last week that Season 7 will launch alongside the Steam version of Apex Legends, but that the Switch version of the game has been delayed to 2021.

Also arriving on November 4 is the Apex Legends Champion Edition. Priced at $39.99, it includes all Legends up to Season 7, seven exclusive legendary items, plus 1,000 Apex Coins.