Apex Legends and Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment is now offering a new way for the developer to engage with fans. A new monthly series, Respawn Responds, allows developers to respond directly to fan questions.
Respawn Entertainment began the series on April 6, opening it up with a trio of videos starring Jason McCord, Design Director for Apex Legends. The first installment of the monthly series consisted of three videos focused mainly on Apex Legends, while also addressing how Respawn receives player feedback.
Part 1 discussed how Respawn intends to address the issue of cheating in Apex Legends. In the short video, McCord described preventing cheating as “a war of attrition forever.” While Respawn hired experts during development to help address the issue, there’s nothing the company can do to guarantee a 100% cheat-free game. Still, he tells viewers that Apex Legends’ anti-cheat team is doing their best to prevent cheating wherever possible.
McCord couldn’t detail Respawn’s specific anti-cheat strategies, but talked a little about how the company will resolve cheating issues after the fact. This includes forgiving losses of players impacted by cheating in ranked matches. The tema is also working on creating new tools and streamlining the process of investigating incidents of cheating. Above all, Respawn wants gamers to know that it takes cheating seriously and has a dedicated team working on the issue.
The second video explains how the studio receives and uses player feedback. McCord explains that he and other team members frequently check Twitter, Reddit, and other forums to look at fans’ suggestions. These fan comments can have a tangible impact on future updates to Apex Legends. McCord gave the example of the damage counter introduced in Season 8, saying it was a popular Reddit request. Apex’s upcoming private matches also fall into that category.
The final video discussed the studio’s goals for Apex Legends in 2021. While McCord didn’t describe Respawn’s specific plans post Season 9, he brought up one big dilemma the team wants to solve. As he put it, “Currently, Apex is strictly a battle royale. But we’ve built these characters and this world that I think players really want to be in, even if they don’t love battle royales. So, at a really high level, I’ll just say that’s something we want to focus on solving this year: other ways to play the game.” Whether his statement hints at new multiplayer options or even a story campaign is open to interpretation.
Some fans on Twitter were disappointed that McCord didn’t mention Titanfall at all during Respawn Responds. Still, this is only the first of what will be a monthly series. If Respawn Entertainment is committed to answering fan questions, it will have to talk about Titanfall 3 sooner or later.
Apex Legends is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.