Apex Legends has gotten off to a hot start since its launch in February 2019 but Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney still doesn’t seem concerned about the game’s affect on Fortnite.
Apex Legends launched in February out of nowhere and quickly won over millions of players, much faster than other battle royale games before it.
It reached 50 million players in its first month alone and broke a Twitch viewership record, proving it had the staying power to compete with and perhaps even dethrone Fortnite.
Despite all of this, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney doesn’t seem all that concerned about Apex Legends when it comes to potentially overtaking Fortnite.
In an interview with Venture Beat, Sweeney confirms Fortnite reached an all-time player peak when Apex Legends was already out and mentioned he hasn’t seen any visible cut into Fortnite.
“We hit a Fortnite non-event peak twice after Apex was out,” Sweeney told Venture Beat. “We haven’t seen any visible cut into Fortnite. It’s a funny thing. The only game you can see where its peaks cut into Fortnite playtime is FIFA. It’s another game for everybody, wildly popular around the world.”
Sweeney does give credit to Apex Legends with re-energizing shooter players and adding a unique spin to the battle royale formula and advancing it. He did take a subtle jab at Apex by saying Fortnite has matched its growth.
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“We’re very close to hitting 250 million Fortnite players,” said Sweeney. “Since Apex Legends came out, we’ve gained an Apex Legends worth of Fortnite players, which is amazing.”
Apex Legends introduced a pinging system that allowed players to mark weapons and items on the map for their teammates to find.
Shortly after this, Fortnite implemented a similar system into its game, which might be an example of what Sweeney was talking about when he said Apex advanced the battle royale formula.
The first Battle Pass just recently launched in Apex Legends so this will be a good indication of how Apex will compete with Fortnite going forward.
Many players were underwhelmed by Respawn’s offering with the Battle Pass in Apex Legends and how it compares to Fortnite’s.
Respawn has mentioned this Battle Pass should be looked at as a jumping off point for players to get a healthy collection of cosmetics and future Battle Passes could be much different.
