In the ever-shifting battle royal market where player count and engagement are incredibly important, how does Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment plan on making its title, Apex Legends, reach more users and players? The answer is so simple that I can’t believe it didn’t launch during the initial release.
During EA’s quarterly earnings call yesterday, Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen has revealed that there are now talks and plans to bring Apex Legends to mobile devices, as well as mobile-centric eastern markets such as China and South Korea.
“We are in advanced negotiations to bring Apex Legends to China and to mobile,” Electronic Arts stated during the earnings call.
What’s weird is that this came in relatively late in the current development period of Apex Legends. The game started out very strong during its first month of release, and was seen by many in the battle royal community as the title that will finally topple the reign of Epic Games’ Fortnite. After the initial wave of excitement passed, the various issues and problems with the game revealed themselves, and now players are wondering what to expect next from Apex Legends.
The logical decision would have been to release it for mobile markets sooner rather than later, and if EA’s statement is anything to go by, the mobile version of Apex Legends is very early in development. That said, the game’s release on mobile could be the big push it needs to stay in the race. Case in point: even though Fortnite has all but beaten its competitors on consoles and PCs, its nearest competitor, PUBG, enjoys great popularity on mobile devices, partly due to being developed as a standalone title (PUBG Mobile) rather than a direct port. It also helps that PUBG is so much more popular in Asian countries such as China, where the mobile market for games is currently booming.
There’s still no word on how this iteration of Apex Legends will play out, or how it will be handled through the mobile market. However, if EA is looking to make it big in Asia, especially China, expect to see Tencent’s involvement very soon.
