Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment announced that the game’s mobile version will be shutting down in all regions on May 1st, just a few weeks short of its first anniversary. As if that wasn’t bad enough news for players, it also said that once the game is gone, so are any items or extras they’ve purchased in Apex Legends Mobile. EA shared the news about the change as part of its Q3 FY203 earnings results.
A news release from the company described the shutdown as a “mutual decision” made with its “development partner”; Apex Legends Mobile was developed by Respawn and Tencent’s Lightspeed & Quantum Studios, which also handles the mobile port of PUBG. Respawn’s post reiterates this note, but begins by stating, “After a strong start, the Apex Legends Mobile content pipeline has begun to fall below that bar of quality, quantity, and cadence.”
Since its launch, Apex Legends Mobile has had a reputation for adding tweaks that players would have liked to see in the full game, with additional abilities for existing legends, new game modes, and a couple of mobile-exclusive legends, Fade and Rhapsody.
Starting at 4:00 PM ET on Tuesday, you will no longer be able to buy things with real money in the game, and the game will also be pulled from app stores. It will officially close at 7pm ET on May 1st.
However, EA does not offer any refunds for real-money purchases, “in accordance with the terms of the EA User Agreement,” the company wrote in an FAQ. This might seem like a slap in the face to people who had invested their money in the game, and it seems especially tight-lipped by EA when developer Iron Galaxy is offering to refund players for their Rumbleverse purchases before the shutdown that s ‘just announced. of that game
However, it looks like there could be some form of Apex on mobile in the future. On EA’s earnings call, CEO Andrew Wilson said that EA and the development partner chose to remove this “version” of the game and that the company has “plans to reimagine a connected Apex mobile experience in the future “.
EA is also halting development of its planned Battlefield mobile game, which it announced in April 2021. “As the industry has evolved and our strategy to create a deeply connected Battlefield ecosystem has taken shape, we have decided to pivot from the current direction to better deliver on our vision for the franchise and to meet the expectations of our players,” EA wrote in a news release on its website.
The company has made a number of changes to the Battlefield franchise following the poor debut of Battlefield 2042, including putting Respawn head Vince Zampella in charge of the franchise and announcing a new narrative campaign in the works from a new studio, Ridgeline Games. “We’re working hard to evolve Battlefield 2042 and are in pre-production on our future Battlefield experiences in our studios around the world,” EA said in its post.
Update Jan 31, 5:18 PM ET: Added details from EA’s earnings call about potential future Apex mobile efforts.