It looks like EA’s smash hit battle royale shooter, Apex Legends, is heading to mobile devices sometime in the future.
According to EA’s fourth-quarter earnings report, the company is in “advanced negotiations to bring Apex Legends to China and to mobile.” Battle royale giants Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds have both made their way to mobile devices following their highly successful debuts on consoles and PC. Apex Legends is a runaway success for EA, amassing over 50 million players since its release in February. It’s EA’s “fastest-growing franchise” according to their earnings report, and it’ll surely grow much larger when the game hits iOS and Android devices. As for a release window, EA will provide updates “when those negotiations are concluded.”
EA also spoke about the future of Apex Legends, albeit in a very vague manner. Respawn has learned lessons from the game’s huge launch and will apply what they’ve learned to the game’s development going forward. They are committed to supporting Apex Legends with long term updates that will bring new items and new legends to the game. Of course, none of this is too surprising given the game’s incredible success. Speaking of success, EA has found the free to play model very successful and will look into creating more free to play games in the future.
EA’s plans to capitalize on the popularity of Respawn’s battle royale shooter come with the news that Anthem failed to meet the company’s expectations, falling short of EA’s sales goal of 5 to 6 million units. EA didn’t provide specifics as to how many copies of Anthem were sold, but CEO Andrew Wilson stated that the company remains committed to supporting Anthem in the long term.
The company also spoke to the success of its subscription services. Subscriptions are very profitable for EA, and the upcoming launch of EA Access on PlayStation 4 will bring a bevy of new users into EA’s ecosystem.
EA’s earnings call provided a lot of insight into how the company’s recent releases have been performing, but it also made one thing abundantly clear: Apex Legends isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
