Respawn opens third studio to support Apex Legends for the next decade
thesixthaxis.comRespawn Entertainment has opened a studio in a third location, expanding their ability to keep supporting their free-to-play battle royale shooter Apex Legends.
Set up in Madison, Wisconsin, in the upper-Midwestern United States, the studio will be led by Ryan Burnett, formerly the director of engine production at Epic Games and having spent well over a decade at Raven Software. This new studio will work alongside the teams in Los Angeles and Vancouver to keep making new Apex Legends content and continually iterate on new ideas, with a new season launching every 90 days.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Burnett said, “When I look at the Apex franchise, I think it’s one of the best out there. The gameplay, the movement and the gunplay are nothing like anything else out there. We’re best in class when you look at other battle royale competitors in terms of movement and gameplay. The other thing we do really well is there’s a deep story, lore and history with all the Legends we have.”
There’s a lot of stuff to create in the coming months and years, albeit in a sustainable fashion, as Respawn’s Steven Ferreira said, “We believe in Apex as a franchise that’s going to be around for 10, 15 years or more and we’re excited to make that happen. In order to do that, we can’t just put everything all upfront, burn ourselves out and not be ready to do that in the long haul.”
As for why Wisconsin was chosen for the new studio’s location, Burnett said, “Wisconsin is quickly becoming a central development hub here. I’ve been here a long time working on FPS games, so we think there’s a really good hotbed of talent here we can pull from.”
While the new studio’s location means that it will be easier to attract some East Coast developers to the
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