Vince Zampella has confirmed that Respawn has no plans to start updating Apex Legends every week and the devs will be sticking to the way they initially set out to space out the incorporation of new weapons, skins, characters and what have you.
The battle royale had the gaming world going batty during its first month but is now falling off, with the lack of fresh content said to be what’s hurting it.
Competitors Epic Games have built a reputation on exactly the opposite, adding new weapons and modes to Fortnite on a weekly basis to keep players and viewers engaged. But, speaking during this week’s Gamesbeat Summit, the Respawn CEO revealed that Respawn will be sticking to their original pacing as the studio doesn’t want to overwhelm the team.
“There are a lot of people that are like ‘hey where’s the weekly updates, Fortnite does this.’ And it’s like, we’re not set up to do that. We never intended to,” he explained (h/t Gamasutra).
“Our intention was to always be seasonal, so we’re kind of staying with that. 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.”
“All the resources on the team are focused on getting this game in a better position so it plays well, so we have enough content, so the seasons are better.”
This comes the very week Polygon published a report detailing the struggles Fortnite devs have been going through to keep the game replete with novel content. The publication interviewed several persons who either work for or used to work for Epic’s Fortnite team and it has been revealed that the workplace isn’t exactly ideal, with some devs working up to 100 hours a week in order to keep the game fresh and up to date.
“The biggest problem is that we’re patching all the time," an employee was quoted as saying. “The executives are focused on keeping Fortnite popular for as long as possible, especially with all the new competition that’s coming in.
“I hardly sleep. I’m grumpy at home. I have no energy to go out. Getting a weekend away from work is a major achievement. If I take a Saturday off, I feel guilty. I’m not being forced to work this way, but if I don’t, then the job won’t get done.”
This seems like just the sort of consequence Respawn is trying to avoid, but the studio must be finding it extremely difficult to strike a balance between satisfying amounts of content and happy employees.
