ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Respawn says it refuses to crunch team on Apex Legends

Respawn says it refuses to crunch team on Apex Legends

Developer Respawn Entertainment has said that it doesn't want to make its staff crunch in order to complete content for Apex Legends.

That's according to game director Chad Grenier, who said during a Reddit AMAas spotted by Eurogamer – that the studio will be slower at making and releasing updates than if it did force its employees to work longer hours. The development chief was replying to a comment from a Reddit user saying Respawn was "extremely slow" with updating Apex Legends with new content.

"We also refuse to crunch the team, so we'll probably be slower at making content than if we worked 15 hour days but that's just not something we're willing to do," Grenier wrote.

"We have nearly doubled our team size since launch to accommodate the content demands, so we're really trying to bring you quality content at a healthy pace."

This isn't anything new for Respawn, really. In 2019, the studio said that it was prioritising employee health over the frequency of Apex Legends updates. Reviews about the company on Glassdoor pointed to the developer not being quite as caring about the wellbeing of its staff as it had publicly made out. Grenier said at the time that the high levels of stress and tough working conditions were the result of the transition to remote development thanks to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

In May, Respawn opened a brand new studio in Canada focused on Apex Legends.

Publisher EA said earlier this month that Apex Legends is on track to become a $1bn game by the end of this financial year, just over two years after its launch. The title recently came to Steam, too.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.