After a strong first day in which the game attracted one million players in under 8 hours, the Apex Legends player count hit 2.5 million in the following day. The sheer size of this early player count is impressive, but this comes along with the news that Apex Legends also reached 600,000 concurrent players. That’s 600,000 players all enjoying the game at the same time. Another impressive milestone.
The previous news of Apex Legends‘ performance came from Respawn CEO, Vince Zampella, over on Twitter. This time the source was slightly more formal. An EA conference call included the news of the game’s promising start (via PCGamesN). In Zampella’s tweet yesterday, he declared that he was “so overwhelmed right now.” This new statistic is likely to have left Zampella elated as the game trends towards hitting 3 million in the coming day.
Daniel Ahmad, an industry analyst reporting on the conference call, tweeted further information about EA’s future plans for Apex Legends:
EA says Apex Legends built from the ground up. Will be operated as a live service with content updates and changes.
Opportunities to take the game in different directions. Esports will be part of that. New game modes, legends etc…
Looking at mobile ver. and crossplay
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) February 5, 2019
The plans sound ambitious and much of it will depend on if the strong start for Apex Legends player count continues. EA’s plans very much read like they are trying to replicate the success of the games which Apex Legends has taken its cues from, like Overwatch and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. All games tend to tail off once the initial hype has settled so it will be interesting to follow how this game fairs.
Apex Legends is joining a scene which already has a lot of competition, including a dominant Fortnite. Respawn is late to the party with their take on battle royale making their task even harder, but early indicators for the game’s future success are looking strong.
The publisher and studio’s hopes for Esports and mobile versions are likely to be determined by how the rising player count takes to the game’s use of battle passes and microtransactions. Some players have already expressed concern at the initial locking of characters behind microtransactions/play time. Time will tell if the increasing player count trend continues, or if it just fizzles away like so many hopeful battle royale games have before.
