'Apex Legends' Was a "Discomfort" to EA and That's a Good Thing, Says Respawn

Respawn already mentioned that EA had "no hand" in the development of Apex Legends, but it turns out that the battle royale game was a good kind of "discomfort" for the mega publisher. At least according to Respawn CEO Vince Zampella.

Zampella recently sat down with the folks over at VentureBeat to talk about the free-to-play battle royale title and mentioned how excited they were to see where this IP can take them. He also mentioned that it shook things up a bit over at EA and how that was actually a really good thing in terms of their working relationship following the acquisition.

"It's exciting for us because it's something new for Respawn," he told the site. "It's a new way of developing, the live service stuff. It's embracing the future of how people take in content. It's something new for EA. It's putting EA in this position of slight discomfort. We haven't done this before, but let's do it. They're embracing it and backing us. For me, it's exciting to see that because that was the promise. Let's get together and do great things. The fact that they're living up to that is exciting."

This echoes what Respawn's Drew McCoy said earlier this month in a different interview about how the studio was able to maintain their vision despite the change of hands: "Not to be throwing EA under the bus, but this wasn't the game they were expecting. I had to go to executives and show it to them and explain it and … not convince but more 'Hey, trust us! This is the thing you want out of us.'

"As a corporation, they can only quantify based on past data and they've never done anything like this before. There's a giant rainbow question mark over revenue projections for this game. They're like 'We don't know! We can't predict.' This is a game we had to say 'This is what we want to do. Help us get there.' They had no hand in development or anything about this game."

Since there were a lot of concerns over new IPs and the Titanfall franchise as a whole following the news of EA acquiring the studio, it's nice to see that the developers had the freedom they needed and is offering up a new perspective to EA as a publisher.

As for the latest free-to-play game itself, Apex Legends is now available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The team also talked a little bit about cross-play plans and what that means for progress, you can learn more about that right here with our previous coverage.

Thoughts on the latest battle royale game to hit the market? Join in on the conversation in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy!