The gaming industry’s worse kept secret right now is that a free-to-play, battle royale game set in the Titanfall universe called Apex Legends is currently in the works at Respawn, and that it could be officially announced anytime now, even as early as Monday.
Thanks to leaks by esports journalist Rod Breslau, who said that he received tips from streamers who attended a Los Angelos event that is tied to the game, we now know that the game will be free-to-play, but will be monetised using in-game microtransactions much like Overwatch, and that the game will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Sources who have played and have knowledge of the game confirm to me that Respawn is set to announce and release Apex Legends on Monday Feb 4, a free to play Titanfall Hero Battle Royale game for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) February 2, 2019
He goes on to add that the game will not feature any Titans, instead, you will be playing solo or in groups of three as heroes with unique abilities. Also, just like the first two Titanfall games, Apex Legend will run on a modified version of Valve’s source engine.
Another interesting piece of news regarding Respawn comes from Kotaku’s Jason Schrier who reported through a source from Respawn that although development for Titanfall 3 was well underway, Respawn made the decision to push back its release as the game’s underlying technology was starting to feel dated, having ran on the same modified source engine as the first two Titanfall games.
Hence, the game might not look good if it was released as it is. Thus Shrier hypothesized that Apex Legend might have been released as a “stopgap” due to Respawn’s decision to push the release of the third Titanfall game back.
Apex Legend is one of two games that Respawn is slated to release this year, the other being Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. We can probably expect official news of Apex Legend from EA sometime soon, perhaps even as early as Monday, February 4.