EA and Respawn have announced that the Battle Pass in Apex Legends will now be pay-only – $9.99 for Premium. Interestingly, this announcement was made against Steam’s less-than-stellar online metrics. According to available data, Apex Legends’ average online count in June was 134 079 – one of the worst figures in recent years (it was worse only in December 2021).
The blix.gg team investigated the changes and learned the reaction of the player community to such innovations, which was expectedly negative. By the way, the official patch note can be found here.
Contents
Highlights
- Details on the changes to the Apex Legends Battle Pass system
- Information on pricing, rewards, and community response
Apex Legends Season 22 Start Date
Season 22 of Apex Legends will begin on August 6, 2024, at around 10 am Pacific Time / 1 pm Eastern Time / 6 am UK Time, according to the in-game Season 21 Battle Pass timer.
The remaining validity time of the combat pass can be viewed in-game.
Battle Pass timer
Battle Pass Recycling
EA and Respawn have announced significant changes to the Apex Legends Battle Pass system that will significantly increase the cost of seasonal content.
The reaction of the community was expectedly adverse, and gamers can be understood – EA has already earned more than 3 billion dollars on the game, and this step shows that for the publisher, the interests of players do not matter – the main thing is how much money the company will get.
We wrote an article detailing the Apex Legends $3.4B Revenue Milestone.
Change in Prices for the Battle Pass
Price change
The free Battle Pass will remain the same. Premium and Premium+ cannot be purchased with Apex Coins.
The game will feature two battle passes per season, one for each split, and each will cost $9.99. Previously, players could get a complete season pass for 950 Apex Coins and, upon completing it, earn enough AC to purchase the next pass at no additional cost.
The new passes still give 1300 Apex Coins, but players can only buy BP with real money now. The price of battle passes doubles, and for loyal fans who previously earned AC to buy them, the game becomes pay-to-win – essentially like paying for a subscription.
Premium+ could previously be purchased for 2,800 Apex Coins, but now only for $19.99.
How Apex Legends Rewards are Changing
Battle Pass rewards
In addition to the price changes, the rewards in Apex Legends are also changing with the start of Season 22:
– Instead of 110 levels, passes will now contain 60 each.
– Previously, Premium+ pass holders could skip 25 levels. Now they can skip 10.
– The rewards themselves have also changed. The developers say that the rewards for past Battle Passes that were rarely used have been removed.
– The free rewards of the new Battle Pass are 200 Apex Coins, 7 Apex sets, one full epic set, and more. The developers note that they have significantly expanded the free rewards for players.
Community Reaction
Gamers themselves have already summarized EA’s offer well. “So basically, pay 10 dollars twice a season instead of being able to continue buying battle passes every season with a one time purchase. In what world is this better for players?” – reads the most clicked comment in the corresponding thread on Reddit.
In the same subreddit, you can find a lot of negative comments calling this decision “the worst possible” and predicting the “death of Apex“.
In the graph, it’s not hard to see that shortly after the announcement of the new monetization, Apex Legends received a sharp increase in negative reviews (over a thousand pieces).
Graph of game reviews
The data show that online Apex Legends on PC on Steam has been declining lately as evidenced by the graph.
Graph of online changes
Summary
Regarding the pricing policy, they stated: “…The decision to switch from in-game currency to real-world currency was not easy for us, but it has lowered the price of the Premium+ pass for players around the world. The new Premium+ Battle Pass costs $19.99 and is 29% cheaper than the old Premium Battle Pass for 2,800 Apex Coins.”
