In a decision that will likely shock the fans of the popular Battle Royale game Apex Legends, Electronic Arts announced today that it will shut down Apex Legends Mobile. The game officially launched on May 17, 2022, for Android and iOS, but will close down its servers on May 1, 2023, less than a year later.
In a post on the EA site, the publisher and Respawn Entertainment, the developer of Apex Legends on PC and console platforms, put the blame for the mobile version's shutdown squarely on its leading developer Lightspeed Studios. While it didn't mention Lightspeed by name, EA and Respawn said that recent updates from the developer had fallen short in terms of "quality, quantity, and cadence." As a result, the decision was made to sunset the game. The post said all in-game purchases have stopped, and the game has been pulled from mobile download stores. The exact day and time of Apex Legends Mobile's closing will be May 1 at 4 pm Pacific time (7 pm Eastern time).
Just a couple of months ago, Apex Legends Mobile was named the 2022 iPhone Game of the Year by Apple. It won the Google Play Game of the Year award in 2022 and also won Google Play's User's Choice category for games. EA and Respawn hinted strongly that we may see another Apex Legends mobile game released sometime in the future, saying they "remain excited about mobile as a platform and look forward to new opportunities to serve players there in the future."
In a separate post, EA also confirmed it will shut down the development of another game, Battlefield Mobile. The mobile version of EA's military first-person shooter series soft-launched in a few Asian countries in November 2022 but it never got a full global launch. In addition, EA will shut down the game's development team Industrial Toys. The publisher stated that it is "highly committed to unlocking Battlefield’s enormous potential." It will continue to improve the latest game in the series, Battlefield 2042, and more games in the series are currently in pre-production.
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