'Apex Legends' Developer Responds To Complaints About The Battle Pass Being Bad

Yesterday, Respawn Entertainment finally unveiled Apex Legends' first-ever Battle Pass and revealed that it's actually releasing today. And despite there being a lot of hype after players begged and pleaded for the Battle Pass for weeks, there was also a considerable wave of critique that took up an issue with the content of the first Battle Pass as well. That said, not long after the complaints about the lack of compelling loot and interesting content built around the Battle Pass -- almost as if it anticipated the backlash -- Respawn Entertainment responded.

For for those of you who don't have their finger on the pulse of the game's community, a lot of the criticism after the Battle Pass reveal was that many of the items (all which can be found here) you unlock are simply filler content: bagdes, skill trackers, icons, etc. There's only a handful of character skins, not many more gun skins, and overall not a lot of content players were hoping for.

"It honestly kind of sucks that you get a badge every 5 levels you earned (or bought) for that season," writes one player on Reddit. "I think they should just have a level 100 Badge or a season 1 Badge (maybe a 50 if you must.) But every 5 levels means a total of 20 badges = 20% of the rewards we are getting from the pass and most of them will never be used the majority of players."

Another player on Reddit adds:

"These cheap, filler rewards add up to 48/100. How are there no kill quips? No executions? No legendary skins? Only 1 skin for 3 characters that are barely different to their common skins? Only 1 legendary weapon skin, and it's for the Havoc? Anyone play Bangalore? You have to wait until level 78 just to unlock the season kill stat. Not 1 legendary banner that I can tell? No crafting material either.

"Reddit, am I the only one extremely disappointed with this season pass? Love the game and was looking forward to buying the pass, but this turned out to be such a missed opportunity. I guess I'll wait till the season is over and see what you offer next time."

Again, it seems a lot of players were hoping for unique character skins, new animated banners, executions, and unique weapon skins, but instead they feel like they got a lot of meaningless stuff they will never use. And then there was also a lot of players not happy with the lack of content -- i.e. objectives built around the Battle Pass like there is in Fortnite.

That said, Respawn Entertainment has responded to the critiques, and revealed what its strategy was with the game's first ever Battle Pass:

"We've tried to create a battle pass where first-time spenders can get a strong base of weapon and character cosmetics to fill out their initial collection at a deep discount," writes Respawn in a new blog post.

"In addition, we've included our first ever three-stage evolving Legendary Havoc weapon skin (for veterans who are looking for the new hotness), as well as Epic and Legendary Apex Packs. These rewards are all in addition the 1000 Apex Coins you can earn through the battle pass, which you can put towards unlocking the next battle pass."

It continued:

"You'll notice the first version isn't built around a complex quest system where you need to do a 720 backflip off of Watchtower Artemis and get two Wingman headshots before hitting the ground. While we think there's really cool design space in quests and challenges for future battle passes, we wanted the initial version to allow our players to just play and learn the game."

And there you have it. As you can see, it looks like Respawn Entertainment's objective with the first Battle Pass was not to overwhelm many of its more casual and newer players, and to a certain extent, to prioritize catering to these players over its more hardcore base. That said, it doesn't look like this will be the template for Battle Passes going forward, so if you aren't happy with this one, don't buy it, and wait for the next one.

Apex Legends is available, for free, via PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Its Battle Pass is expected to go live today at 1 p.m. EST. For more coverage on the popular battle royale game, click here. And as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. Do you plan on picking up the Battle Pass today?