During today’s EA Play Live presentation, the publisher revealed that Apex Legends will arrive on Nintendo Switch sometime this fall. The publisher also announced that cross-play is coming to the game, so Switch owners won’t have to worry about struggling to find others to play with when the first-person shooter arrives on Nintendo’s handheld hybrid. A Switch version of the game had been long requested by fans, but developer Respawn had mostly played coy about the possibility of a port for the game. Now, players will actually have the opportunity to play the game in a portable format for the first time!
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Electronic Arts has never had the closest relationship with Nintendo; while the publisher has brought multiple entries in the FIFA franchise to Switch over the last few seasons, EA has offered very little else. That said, the success of Nintendo’s latest system has clearly given the publisher an incentive to rethink that position. In a financial sales briefing held in May, EA confirmed plans to bring multiple titles to the console throughout 2020, but offered no specifics, at the time.
Apex Legends certainly makes a lot of sense on the platform. MMO games like Fortnite and Overwatch have found a home on Nintendo Switch, as publishers seek to grow the potential audiences of those games. Titles such as these can only continue to thrive as long as they can keep audiences interested. Adding another console’s audience to the cross-play pool ensures that players will continue having others to enjoy the game with, while also getting them to spend more money on DLC.
While it doesn’t seem that EA will be giving Nintendo Switch the kind of attention that other platforms receive, the announcement of Apex Legends shows that EA is at least starting to take the platform seriously. Since the game’s release in 2019, Apex Legends has proven quite successful for EA. The decision to bring it to Switch is telling, to say the least. If the game performs equally well on Switch, it could give the publisher further incentive to bring more games to the platform in the future.
Are you excited to see Apex Legends on Nintendo Switch? Do you plan on downloading the game when it arrives on the platform? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk about all things gaming!
