Developer Respawn Entertainment, who was
acquired by publisher Electronic Arts in 2017, has been knowingly hard at work on
Titanfall 3. But before the highly anticipated threequel is upon us, it seems like we'll be getting some sort of spinoff to hold us over.
Rumors suggest it will be a free-to-play, hero battle royale spinoff of
Titanfall called
Apex Legends. It was first reported by YouTuber
The Quartering, with further details shared by esports consultant Rod Breslau
on Twitter. Breslau reports through a series of tweets that EA will formally announce and release
Apex Legends on Monday, February 4.
Breslau shared all sorts of details regarding the supposed battle royale spinoff, revealing it "will feature classes/heroes with unique abilities, maximum of 60 players per server, maximum of three players per team (trios) to compliment each other." Unlike what made
Titanfall so appealing and unique,
Apex Legends will not feature the large mechanical Titans.
With a free-to-play business model, EA will reportedly monetize
Apex Legends through micro-transactions and loot boxes containing cosmetic items and other in-game content
"with a very similar approach to that in Overwatch."
Kotaku
hopped on the spoiler bandwagon, claiming they also heard similar reports from their own sources. Jason Schrier claims to have heard from a tipster last month that
"it plays like Titanfall mixed with Overwatch and Blackout from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4." That sounds like quite the composition.
Schrier also went on to suggest that Respawn had been working on
Titanfall 3, but the modified Source engine it ran on began to look dated by today's standards. He speculates that EA might've opted to switch engines for
Titanfall 3 - presumably causing a delay - and instead chose to release
Apex Legends as "a stopgap."
It's worth noting that EA had mentioned on numerous occasions that Respawn was planning to release multiple games in 2019. The first is the already-announced
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, while the second was expected to be
Titanfall 3.
Although
Titanfall 3 is presumably still on the roadmap, it seems its 2019 release will be replaced with
Apex Legends, should these rumors prove true. For what it's worth, games industry insider
Nibel discovered that the URL
"PlayApex.com" redirects to EA's homepage, and that EA
trademarked "Apex Legends" and "Project Apex" in 2018.
Apex Legends is rumored to release on Monday, February 4, the same day EA is expected to announce it. It's also possible, given these leaks, that EA could reveal it earlier, perhaps as early as Sunday as a Super Bowl surprise.