Months after ruling out an Apex Legends 2, EA CEO says "an even bigger, more meaningful" Apex 2.0 is on the table after Battlefield 6

Months after ruling out Apex Legends 2 as a possibility, publisher EA now says that Apex 2.0 is planned to exist in the long-term future.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson confirmed as much via the company's most recent Q&A fiscal call when asked about the battle royale game's supposed underperformance. "We've had over 200 million people play the game," Wilson says, "however, the trajectory of the business of that franchise has not been headed in the direction that we have wanted for some time."

Wilson then states developer Respawn Entertainment is focusing on "three vectors" to get Apex Legends back on track. The first comes from supporting the "tens of millions of people" who play daily with smaller updates that cover "quality-of-life, anti-cheat, and all of the things that make the core experience great, as well as the creation of new content for that community."

The second supposed "phase" will apparently come in the form of "a more meaningful update of Apex as a broad game experience" - though, Wilson also says that this won't come out "on top of a Battlefield launch, and so, from a timing standpoint, our thinking right now is that would exist post-Battlefield." Battlefield 6 is set to release by April 2026, even though the publisher isn't opposed to delaying it in the midst of a very competitive year.

But EA wants to milk this cow in perpetuity and make sure it's a money-printer for the next "10, 20, 30 years and growing." Wilson then refers to these plans for "an even bigger, more meaningful update" as "an Apex 2.0, if you will," that'll come "on a longer-term horizon." The CEO adds: "This will not be the final incarnation of Apex."

It's an interesting revelation since EA said it wasn't interested in making an Overwatch 2-style follow-up to the shooter just a few months ago because "the version two thing has almost never been as successful as version one," and the company didn't want players to lose all the progress they've invested in. From my perspective, Wilson's missing the most crucial piece of this puzzle that'd surely turn Apex Legends' fortunes overnight: Titanfall 3.

See where Apex Legends lands in our best battle royale games ranking.