Electronic Arts has announced that both Apex Legends Mobile and Battlefield Mobile are shutting down. Apex Legends Mobile will be shut down on May 1, 2023, at 4pm Pacific Time. After that point, the game will no longer be playable. No date has been provided for Battlefield Mobile, but EA says it will be discontinued. Industrial Toys, the studio behind Battlefield Mobile, is also shutting down completely.
“While Apex Mobile is off to a strong start, the ongoing experience will not live up to our player expectations,” explains. EA in a statement. “After many months of working with our development partners, we have made the joint decision to discontinue the mobile game.”
EA continued, “We have also made the decision to discontinue development of the current Battlefield mobile title. As the industry evolved and our creation of the deeply connected Battlefield ecosystem took shape, we decided to shift direction from the current direction to the best vision for the franchise and to meet expectations. of the player.”
During today’s earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson offered an additional sentence in his prepared remarks about the possible future of Apex Legends on mobile. “We learned a lot [from Apex Legends Mobile] and plans to reimagine the connected Apex Mobile experience in the future.”
This seems to indicate that EA could bring Apex Legends back to mobile in some formats without the development partner of Apex Legends Mobile, Tencent subsidiary and PUBG Mobile maker Lightspeed Studios.
We have made the decision to discontinue Apex Legends Mobile.
We are sure you have a lot of questions. For more information on the current state of things, including FAQs, please read the blog below.https://t.co/Yjr4EOJnTq pic.twitter.com/4k3dGzOL12
– Revive (@Respawn) January 31, 2023
Later in the call, Wilson gave a much more in-depth answer as to why Apex Legends Mobile was shutting down. He cited three main reasons. First regarding gameplay:
“There’s a level of immersion and complexity to Apex gameplay in particular, which is very similar to what Apex is all about – the verticality of the gameplay and the team play – that just doesn’t quite suit the devices. mobile as we expected. I think we learned a lot from that.”
Second, Wilson said that while Apex Legends Mobile is attracting core players and has initially attracted new users, it “didn’t retain more casual users at the speed we needed.” and in a game that relies heavily on team play and competitive play, the liquidity of the overall player base really, really matters when you think about the future experience for players over time. .”
Finally, Wilson cites a particularly challenging mobile market with “changing player personalities” that makes it hard to get a foothold. However, he reiterated EA’s interest in returning to Apex on mobile, albeit with a different approach.
“The biggest new launches that are seeing the most success are the ones that are deeply connected to the broader franchise, where there’s not always crossplay but there’s definitely a difference. cross-development and the feeling that they are part of a unified community and a unified game experience.”
Wilson then went on to point out that EA is thinking the same way for Battlefield Mobile, which could potentially yield similar returns in the future.
“Certainly we’ve learned that from Apex Legends and we’re evolving into Battlefield Mobile, we anticipate that while Battlefield has also been in development for a while and is making good progress, but Given the structure of that game, it’s also likely to face some of the same challenges,” Wilson said. “And instead of continuing to fight that, we wanted to go back, take a breath, reset and really think about the broader franchise strategy and allow the leadership to build an immersive game experience.” truly cross-platform roles around Battlefield reimagined in the Future.”
EA says it will also continue to work on Battlefield 2042 and is in pre-production for future Battlefield games. Back in September, it was revealed that Halo veteran Marcus Lehto will lead Ridgeline Games in developing new Battlefield narrative campaigns.
From today, Apex Legends will be removed from current storefrontand all in-app purchases with real money will be disabled. However, players can continue to spend their existing Syndicate Gold and keep playing until May 1. This outage is specific to the mobile version and will not affect any platforms. any other. In addition, there will be no refunds.
In IGN Review Apex Legends on mobile devices, we said, “Apex Legends Mobile showcases Respawn’s skill in creating unique and slick FPS experiences even on mobile platforms. While the controls are a bit lacking, Apex Mobile has set the standard for mobile FPS games with its ability to keep Apex’s iconic motion mechanics and unique battle royale experience. core.”
Update, January 31: This story has been updated to include more statements from Andrew Wilson about EA’s Q3 earnings call and news that Toys Industry has shut down.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He has been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. How surprising! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
Additional reporting by Rebekah Valentine.
