Tech & Gadgets

EA suggests Apex Legends 2 won’t be part of the plans after Season 22, disappointing

Electronic Arts likely doesn’t plan to work on a sequel to Apex Legends, the company suggested Tuesday during its second-quarter 2025 earnings call. EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in response to a question about a possible “Apex 2.0” during the conference call that a second version of a live service title was almost never as successful as the first version, claiming that EA’s focus was on continuing to support Apex Legends players with seasonal content updates.

Apex Legends will fall short of expectations in the second quarter of 2024

EA kept its Profit figures second quarter 2025 on Tuesday, with record bookings of $2.079 billion (approximately Rs. 17,480 crore) for the quarter. The strong results were driven by EA Sports franchises such as College Football 25, Madden 25 and EA Sports FC 25. During the quarterly earnings call, EA’s CEO spoke about the live service title Apex Legends, confirming that the shooter did not appear in the quarter met expectations. after the launch of season 22.

According to Wilson, the franchise required widespread changes to re-engage players and drive growth of the live service. “After changes to the Battle Pass construction, we did not see the increase in monetization that we expected,” says Wilson said on the earnings call.

“Two things have become clear in the free-to-play FPS category. First, in a competitive landscape where brand, a strong player base and high-quality mechanics are more important than ever, Apex has proven that it is a compelling franchise for us and a strong player in the industry,” said Wilson.

“Second, major systemic change is needed to achieve significant growth and re-engagement. We will continue to focus on maintaining and breadth of content serving our global community as we work to create more significant, innovative changes in the future,” he added.

Apex Legends 2 may not happen

However, in the Question and answer session on the earnings call, Wilson seemed to rule out Apex Legends 2. In response to a question about the need for an “Apex 2.0” rather than an incremental update, Wilson said EA’s goal was to deliver updates from season to season and continue to add creative features to the existing game adding instead of an overhaul.

“But what I would say is that what we’ve seen again, in the context of live service-driven gaming at scale, is that version two has almost never been as successful as version one,” Wilson said. “And so the goal now is really to make sure that we continue to support the global player base that we have and deliver the new innovative creative content season after season, and also continue to build these other things, but build them in a way that players do not have to give up the progress they have made or the investment they have made in the existing ecosystem,” he added.

The CEO said he didn’t believe a “separate” experience was necessary to re-engage Apex Legends players.

“Any time we call on a community of global players to have to choose between the investments they have made to date and future innovation creativity, that is never a good place to put our community. And so our goal will be to continue to innovate in the core experience, and you’re seeing that now from season to season as our seasons continue to expand, and we’re changing the key modalities that play into those seasons and then building additional opportunities for engagement with different game modalities that go beyond what the current core mechanic delivers. And we think we can do those two things together, and we don’t believe we have to separate the experience to do that. But again, the team is working on this now,” Wilson said.

Apex Legends Season 22

Apex Legends, while still a popular online shooter with a dedicated player base, has experienced a decline in player numbers in the five years since its launch in 2019. In August, EA launched Apex Legends Season 22 with new features such as more modes, a new map, and a new anti-cheat system.

However, net bookings for the game fell short of EA’s expectations in the second quarter of 2025, even as it expanded freemium access through the entire first half of the Season 22 Battle Pass, the company reported in its financial results for the quarter. As a result, EA said it adjusted the remainder of fiscal year 2025 to reflect lower-than-expected engagement with the game.

However, despite the lowered expectations for Apex Legends, the company announced that it was on track to maintain mid-single-digit growth for its top live service titles.

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