During the company’s Q4 and 2024 fiscal year earnings call, Electronic Arts revealed that the Apex Legends battle royale has earned the gaming giant over $3 billion in revenue across its five-year lifespan.
According to comments made in the full document outlining the contents of EA’s most recent fiscal earnings call, CEO Andrew Wilson said, “Since its surprise, smash-hit release in 2019, the HD title of Apex Legends has surpassed $3.4 billion in lifetime net bookings.”
For those unaware, net bookings essentially means revenue generated after any deductions or fees have been taken out of the final amount. It isn’t $3.4 billion in profit, but the fact that in-game cosmetics for a free-to-play game has generated that much revenue in a little over five years is staggering.
Apex Legends was released on February 4, 2019, and has just recently reached Season 21, the latest in a long-running series of content updates that have kept players glued to the game.
Wilson went on to address some of the changes the publisher focused on in fiscal year 2024 to position Apex Legends for “future revenue growth.”
“For example, we finished the year with significant changes to the mechanics of our popular Ranked Mode,” the CEO disclosed. “We engaged with the community, increased transparency, and thoughtfully addressed their feedback, and, as a result, saw dramatic improvements in player sentiment scores around the world.”
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Apex Legends’ Ranked mode has been a hot-button issue among the community for some time, with developer Respawn constantly tweaking and changing elements of the game mode each season.
However, Ranked has consistently had issues since its introduction, with prominent members of the Apex community, such as pro player Imperial Hal calling out the abundance of teamers and cheaters in the mode throughout Season 20.
Wilson also explained that the company “prioritized expanding Apex’s appeal” in FY24, to make it easier for new players to get on board despite the game being over 20 seasons deep. In particular, the CEO cited the popular Three Strikes and Straight Shot LTMs as cornerstones of this decision.
To conclude the Apex Legends section of the call, Wilson said: “Looking to the future, we will continue to invest in broadening the audience by building upon the epic characters of this world that go beyond the current Battle Royale.”
Interestingly, Season 21’s new Legend, Alter, lacked a dedicated lore video for the first time in years—something fans expressed disappointment in.