In wake of some new concepts surfacing for Finisher moves in Apex Legends, a developer from Respawn Entertainment has revealed why the in-game executions can’t be more brutal than they already are.
Finishers are Legend-specific cosmetic items in Apex Legends that players can equip in order to perform executions on downed enemies, eliminating them with style.
While they may not be the most important thing in the game, they’re still something that people are definitely interested in and always like to ask Respawn to add more of.
In fact, some of the more creative players have taken matters into their own hands and created several amazing Finisher concepts themselves
For example, here is one made by Reddit user ‘Vaarnex’ for Caustic, which involves the insidious Toxic Trapper killing off a downed enemy by slashing their neck with a broken glass beaker.
There’s no denying that this would be an awesome Finisher to use in-game, and even a Respawn developer who goes by the Reddit username ‘lowkeydbjosh’ thought it was “pretty cool.”
However, in that same comment, the dev also made it clear that they would not be able to add that to the game, since it wouldn’t be classified as “Teen-rated.”
This then reveals why Respawn can’t add Finishers that are too brutal or graphic, since they would not fit the guidelines established by the game’s official Teen rating set by ESRB.
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At first glance, the reason does seem to make sense, but it has since cast a lot of players into confusion because of several other Finisher that are actually in the game that displays the same level of ferocity.
Fans brought up Lifeline inserting needles into the neck of downed enemies as they struggle, Bloodhound stabbing people in the side with a knife, and even the robot Pathfinder strangling victims with its grapple rope to the point where their necks get ripped apart.
The existence of these Finishers has raised the question as to why they are allowed to be in the game while the fan-made Caustic one above wouldn’t be, since they all are of the same level of viciousness.
The idea behind Finishers opens the door to a world of possibilities, but now we know that Respawn has to stay behind a line drawn in the sand when it comes to displaying too much brutality.
Those hoping for more aggressive execution styles seem to be out of luck, unless, of course, ESRB end up changing the game’s rating to Mature, which many thought should have been the rating given anyway.