Electronic Arts may not consider making a sequel to Apex Legends, the company said during its fiscal 2025 second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. Answering a question about a potential “Apex 2.0” on a conference call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the second iteration of a live service game is almost never as successful as the first, insisting that EA’s focus is on continuing to support Apex Legends players with seasonal content updates.
Apex Legends’ Q2 2024 results fall short of expectations
EA held its Q2 2025 earnings call on Tuesday and reported record net bookings of $2.079 billion (approximately Rs. 17,480 crore) for the quarter. The strong performance was driven by EA Sports games such as “College Football 25,” “Madden 25” and “EA Sports FC 25.” During a quarterly earnings call, EA’s CEO talked about live-streaming service game Apex Legends, confirming that the shooter fell short of expectations in the quarter following the launch of Season 22.
Wilson said the series needed extensive changes to re-engage players and drive growth on the live service. “With the changes to the battle pass structure, we didn’t see the uptick in monetization we expected,” Wilson said on the earnings call.
“Two things have become clear in the free-to-play FPS category. First, in a competitive landscape where brand, a strong core player base, and high-quality mechanics are more important than ever, Apex has proven to be a compelling franchise for us and a stalwart in the industry,” said Wilson.
“Second, large-scale systemic change is needed to drive significant growth and re-engagement. We will continue to focus on the retention and breadth of content to serve our global community as we work on more significant, innovative changes in the future,” he added.
Apex Legends 2 may not happen
However, during the Q&A portion of the earnings call, Wilson seemed to rule out the possibility of Apex Legends 2. In response to a question about the need for “Apex 2.0” rather than incremental updates, Wilson said EA’s goal is to provide season-by-season updates and continue to bring creative features to existing games rather than overhaul them.
“But I would say typically what we see again, in the context of large-scale real-time service-driven games, is that second edition almost never succeeds as well as first edition,” Wilson said. “Really, the goal now is to make sure that we continue to support the global player base that we have and deliver new innovative creative content season after season, as well as building on these other pieces of content, but building them in a way that players don’t have to give up the progress they’ve made or the investment they’ve made in the existing ecosystem,” he added.
The CEO said he doesn’t think a “standalone” experience is needed to re-engage Apex Legends players.
“Anytime we ask our global player community to have to choose between the investments they’ve made to date and the innovative creativity of the future, that’s never a good place for our community to be in. So our goal will be to continue to innovate on the core experience and as our season gets bigger, you’ll see that as our season Increasingly, we’re changing the way key games are played in these seasons and then creating more opportunities to participate in different ways of playing beyond what the current core mechanics offer. We think we can do both of those things together, and we don’t think we have to separate the experience to do that, but the team is working on that right now,” Wilson said.
Apex Legends Season 22
While Apex Legends remains a popular online shooter with a dedicated player base, it has seen a decline in player numbers in the five years since its launch in 2019. In August, EA launched Apex Legends Season 22, which included new features such as more modes, new maps, and a new anti-cheat system.
However, the company reported in its financial results for the quarter that despite EA’s freemium offering for the entire first half of the Season 22 Battle Pass, net bookings for the game in the second quarter of 2025 were below EA’s expectations. As a result, EA said it has adjusted its forecast for the remainder of fiscal 2025 to reflect lower-than-expected engagement for the game.
Despite lower expectations for Apex Legends, the company announced that its core live service game is on track to maintain mid-single-digit growth.