Apex Legends has been going strong since 2019, with the battle royale shooter pushing itself into some wild directions over the years. 2026 is no different, with one of the most exciting collaborations to date set to debut in the game just a week from this writing. Cyberpunk 2077, with its distinct characters, visual flair, and explosive action, makes for a natural fit with the world of Apex Legends.
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That’s a sentiment shared by many members of the development team, who have been teasing how the season will incorporate plenty of key aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 without overshadowing the underlying elements that make Apex Legends stand out in a crowded genre. During an interview with ComicBook.com, Apex Legends art director Alisa Rastorgueva, world director Eduardo Agostini, and lead technical designer Jesse Medellin described the process of bringing Cyberpunk into Apex Legends, what excited them the most about the collaboration, and what else is on their crossover bucket list.
Cyberpunk Was A Natural Fit For Apex Legends, According To Respawn
CB: What was it about Cyberpunk 2077 as a franchise that made it ideal for a crossover with Apex Legends?
Alisa Rastorgueva: I think for Season 29 in general, the overall theme was “Overclocked.” That made Cyberpunk a natural fit for that season. Leading up to it, when we were deciding on candidates, I think that was definitely why it was our choice. We have that CyberPunk aesthetic and themes throughout the season itself, and so we’re really excited to have the collaboration be the capstone on the entire season’s themes, yeah. no
Jesse Medellin: From a gameplay standpoint, when we heard of it, that’s when we were excited. This is really cool! There’s so much in the Cyberpunk universe that we can pull from to make really interesting gameplay mechanics. Personally, I love the story between Lucy and David. Their journey in the anime is great. I thought it was a great opportunity to highlight that journey and evoke that through the gameplay.
Eduardo Agostini: On the map side, we were already doing our own cyberpunk-like version of Apex Legends with E-District. The themes of Cyberpunk are obviously a little bit more adult, so we found our own lane. We experimented and found that this is what we can do with their universe and how to merge it with ours. We’re excited. I don’t think any of our maps naturally resonate as much with Cyberpunk as E-District does, so we were pretty excited to crank up the map even more.
These crossovers carry some inherently tricky challenges, ensuring that both games feel properly represented by the finished product. What was the process of balancing those elements together like?
Eduardo: CDPR was great. They did not ask us to try to remake Night City. They didn’t want us to make Night City. They simply gave us access to a bunch of things that would help us feel like we were in the same universe, even just as a sister city to Night City. We always say that when we do any kind of collab, these partners are our guests; they’re here for a short time, so we don’t want to give up what makes us Apex Legends.
We don’t want to lose our aesthetic and our language. We always try to find ways to bring in from the outside but not have it feel like it’s overwhelming our visuals or our gameplay. I think when we have that kind of pillar in place, it’s not hard to stick to it. Apex still comes first, but these are valuable guests in our universe, so we’re going to treat them well.
Alisa: It’s similar to the Legends and the cosmetic side in general. I think one of our main philosophies with collaborations is that we don’t want it to feel like our Legends are cosplaying characters from another universe. We really want it to feel like they embody those characters while still preserving their own identity. So of course Axel should feel like Lucy, but she’s going to move like Axel.
She’s not gonna take on everything that Lucy is, because it’s still Apex. It’s still our universe. That was definitely one of the big priorities for us. That’s why when we make the pairings and the choices we do, we really aren’t looking at just a visual match or a body type match; we’re also looking at personality and gameplay abilities too. If those come into play and work well with the partner, that’s how we make our decisions.
Jesse: Gameplay-wise, it’s very similar. When we approach the design for what we’re going to do for this event, we first think that, at the base of it all, you’re playing Wildcard. We’re providing additive elements that are going to accentuate your experience in Wildcard. Cyberpunk is a really nice way to accentuate everything. When you’re playing, it’s about feeling extra powerful and about enhancing yourself.
One of the challenging parts was the Blackwall, because we wanted to properly represent what Lucy is able to do with quick hacks and deep diving into the net. But at the base, we wanted to allow players to still play what Apex is and what Wildcard is. Finding that balance of representing how to hack, but also being aware of your surroundings so that you can be engaged in combat at all times, was tricky but rewarding.
Dream Crossovers And Biggest Surprises
I’ve got to ask — do you have any bucket list crossovers for the future of Apex Legends?
Eduardo: I’m gonna say it, because I don’t know if it’ll ever happen, but Masters of the Universe just came out. I’m an old guy; I loved it. I’ve been talking about this for years. “Masters of the Apex Universe.” Imagine that! As an old guy who loves the show and the movie, I thought that could be pretty cool.
Alisa: I think we’re always exploring partnerships, and we definitely have a lot of spokes in the fire for future seasons. You can expect more crossovers in the future.
Jesse: I mean, this might sound like a boring answer, but like [Cyberpunk] is definitely one of the bucket list IPs for me and a lot of devs on the team. They’re huge fans of the Cyberpunk universe. It’s been incredible to be able to work with CDPR and like bring these elements into Apex and collaborate with them to have this crossover.
What has been the biggest surprise of bringing Cyberpunk 2077 into the world of Apex Legends?
Jesse: The one thing I was really surprised about was just how different play styles kind of gravitate towards different aspects of the event. We have Sandevistan, which focuses on just using speed and combat to either engage or disengage, and then you have Blackwell Breach, which is aimed at creating openings for your team to reach into their defenses.
You have Cyber Psychosis, when you reach the maximum cybernetic capacity, you’re just this berserker, tanky beast that’s just destructive. Throughout playtests, different devs and different playtesters gravitated towards a specific aspect of the event and never let go. There were members of the dev team that were always picking Sandevistan and nothing else.
Eduardo: From the map side… I don’t know, it was all so natural. I hope that any future collabs are as easy to visualize in our world. I don’t think it always will be. This property was just perfect. It was a dream; we had access to so many great assets; We already had a strong foundation, so it just came together really naturally.
Alisa: I think [for the Legend and cosmetics team], the surprising moments were mainly just figuring out how to bring in anime characters into a more realistic world. I think it just goes to show that we’re still able to achieve a quality level, you know, that we would expect to see in Apex, even if we’re looking at drawn, animated characters. Style-wise and design-wise, it definitely opened up our eyes towards new approaches. I think that was probably one of the biggest surprises — that it turned out as well as it did. [Laughter].
The Apex Legends x Cyberpunk: Edgerunners crossover event is officially scheduled to run from July 14 to August 4.
