It is fairly common in today's gaming industry to hear stories about mega-publishers like EA and Activision getting heavily involved in the development of their studios' and developing partners' games. Publishers are often accused of ruining games with heavy-handed microtransactions or forcing developers to make games that are part of a trend in order to turn a profit. So, it is not very surprising that some gamers might believe that EA, who owns and publishes games from developer Respawn Entertainment, may have had major input into the development of Respawn's newly released battle royale game Apex Legends. But Respawn says that is untrue - in fact, Respawn had to sell EA on the game's viability, according to the developer.

The topic came up when Respawn's Drew McCoy was asked if EA forced the developer to put microtransactions in Apex Legends, which is a free-to-play game that relies on loot boxes that deliver skins, voice lines, and more (very similar to the way Overwatch handles loot boxes) to make a profit. McCoy said that EA was hands-off with the development of Apex Legends, and Respawn had to convince the publisher to take a risk on the game:

"...We decided to make this game. Not to be throwing EA under the bus, but this wasn’t the game they were expecting. I had to go to executives, show it to them, and explain it and…not convince but more, 'Hey, trust us! This is the thing you want out of us.' [...] They had no hand in development or anything about this game."

Some players will take a bit of comfort in knowing that Respawn was the driving force behind the decision to make a battle royale game in the first place and that the development was not driven by a publisher trying to get its own Fortnite or Call of Duty Blackout on the market. That also goes for concerns over the game's microtransactions, considering that EA has been hit hard with criticisms in the microtransactions arena, especially with the release of Battlefront 2.

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Respawn says there is a year of seasons and content already planned out for Apex Legends, as the game looks to be taking a page out of Fortnite's book. Considering how well accepted (not to mention profitable) Fortnite's handling of microtransactions have been in its battle royale mode, Respawn could potentially follow a similar path that is non-offensive to players. Time will tell, but it appears that Respawn is in control of its game and not EA.

Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: Game Informer