by theygamesWell, that backfired. Today Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment announced that it’s changing how battle passes worked – something that should be good news, as fans have been increasingly unhappy with the system. Unfortunately for the developer, the game, and the community – this announcement has gone down like a lead balloon, with fans planning protests and hitting the game with negative reviews on Steam in its wake.
The main reason for fan fury is twofold: how long the new battle passes will last and how much they will cost. Previously in the battle royale game battle passes would last a season and would set you back real money or you could buy in with in-game currency earned by playing. That’s all changing, with Apex Legends battle passes going to two per season, and you’ll only be able to buy them with real world money.
To be fair, for this price players do appear to receive more – with a few extra rewards being included with each battle pass. The issue arises that in the old system fans could simply buy one battle pass and then use the in-game currency earned from the pass to pay for the next one. Now, players who wish to participate will have to put down cold hard cash to join in – and they’ll have to do so twice a season.
As you can imagine, on Reddit, social media, and Steam reviews, fans are seething over this change. “They just guaranteed that I will not get another battlepass,” says Reddit user u/frostymatador13. “The audacity of trying to charge you 10 bucks per split for a bunch of crappy blue gun skins, trackers and other inane cosmetics that you will NEVER equip is pure insanity,” reads another by user u/Narukami_7. Redditors are also currently planning protests, with many signing up to pledge not to purchase anything in Apex Legends while this system is intact.
On Steam the review bombing has begun and already moved the game into the “Mixed” category, with only 51% of new reviews sitting on positive at the time of writing. The changes to battle passes are the most common complaint. “Now with the new battle pass system, I’m deleting the game, as well as most players, bye,” states one highly-rated review by Steam user KE VE.
The new version of the Apex Legends battle pass will launch with Season 22. There’s no date for the start of the season just yet but it will follow the end of Season 21 on Tuesday August 6. You can read the full announcement over on the official site.
If you’re going to head into the game, you can check out our comprehensive guides to get you started such as our Apex Legends characters guide, our guide to all Apex Legends skins, and our Apex Legends tier list.
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