Apex Legends Lays Out Development Priorities, Re-iterates Commitment To Employees' Health

Earlier this week, Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella admitted that content rollouts for Apex Legends were a bit lighter than he would have liked, but that comes with the benefit of healthier and happier employees. Today, Executive Producer Drew McCoy talked about those issues, as well as others, in a blog piece on the Apex Legends site.

McCoy echoed Zampella's words, saying that there have been "a few bumps along the way," including the usual "exploits, bugs, cheaters, and more" that come with a rapidly expanding game. On that note, he referred players to a Reddit post from March that described, in limited detail, what Respawn is doing to deal with those kinds of players. More progress will be announced next week, McCoy said.

Also labeled as "extremely high priority" is an issue that causes slow server performance at the start of a match, which McCoy stated was the result of one match using up too many resources and slowing everything else down. Audio and hit registration issues are also on the to-do list.

With regards to new content, McCoy re-iterates what Zampella said about "the health of our team" and not wanting to pursue an insane update schedule to try and meet demand. He said that his team prefers "large, meaningful changes to the game" over weekly updates, and that they're committed to the season pass schedule as currently established, with the first look at Season 2 coming at EA Play in June.

"Our long-term goal is to ensure Apex Legends always feels alive and thriving, with a focus on quality of content over novelty or speed of release. At the same time, we want to maintain our culture as a development team and avoid crunch that can quickly lead to burnout or worse."

McCoy ended his letter with a message about the separation of development teams on Apex Legends, Respawn's recently announced Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and future Titanfall games, saying that no members of the Apex Legends team are being pulled into other projects. You can read McCoy's full update on the Apex Legends site.