Apex Legends recently found itself in some hot water due to changes it was going to make to its battle pass. The studio had intended to break up the premium battle pass into two when Season 22 launched. This upset much of the game’s fanbase and the outcry worsened as Respawn revealed that players would now have to pay real-world money to unlock both battle passes instead of the usual choice of real money or Apex Coins (Apex Legends premium currency). Apex Legends’ battle passes have always awarded Apex Coins, allowing players to purchase new passes by completing previous ones–this change would have removed that perk, meaning individual players would be pouring more money into the game than before
Shortly after that was announced, a significant portion of the Apex Legends community began pushing back against this. On July 24, Apex Legends issued a statement on its official X/Twitter account claiming that the team will not proceed with its original battle pass plans.
An update on our new Battle Pass: pic.twitter.com/ga8NB8cwFB
— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) July 24, 2024
The statement explains that in Season 22, Apex Legends will continue to allow players to get the premium battle pass for 950 Apex Coins. “We recognize that we could have handled the battle pass changes better–that’s on us,” the Apex Legends team writes in the statement. When the season launches on August 6, players will have the chance to get the season’s first premium battle pass by completing in-game challenges. When the second split occurs on September 17, players can purchase the season’s second premium battle pass using the game’s premium currency or real money with plans to run with this format going forward after that.
— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) July 24, 2024
In an interview with IGN, Steven Ferreira, the creative director of Apex Legends, revealed that the studio had made these changes because the team wanted to be able to “track data on how many players are engaging with the battle pass” and that this was something the team did on its own without EA pushing them one way or the other.
According to the statement, going forward, whenever the team plans to implement significant changes, it’ll slowly roll them out and engage more with the community instead of just dropping them.
