Apex Legends shelves plans to only charge real money for battle passes, following backlash
"We recognise that we could have handled the Battle Pass changes better"
Apex Legends developers Respawn Entertainment have announced that poorly-received plans to overhaul the battle royale's Premium Battle Pass will be partially walked back. Most crucially, the new passes – set to launch alongside the upcoming Season 22 in August – will no longer be sold exclusively for real-world cash; as with previous BPs, players will still be able to buy them with accumulated in-game currency.
"You’ve spoken, and we’ve listened", opens the statement on the official Apex Legends TwiXer. "With the release of Season 22 we will restore the ability to get the Premium Battle Pass for 950 Apex Coins. We recognise that we could have handled the Battle Pass changes better – that’s on us."
Several other changes will still go ahead, including the switch from one Premium Battle Pass per season to one smaller (yet still more reward-stuffed) PBP per half-season. Yet these were never the target of player ire, which has been laser-focused on that hard cash requirement since it was revealed by publishers EA a couple of weeks ago. In essence, this would have denied dedicated players the chance to earn future Premium Battle Passes for no additional cost, as each pass includes enough Apex Coins as levelling-up rewards to cover the cost of the next one.
Happily, that can now continue, as even these truncated half-season passes will dish out 1300 coins when completed – more than enough to chain together successive purchases. A wise change of course, then, even if it’s one that probably shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. If you're curious, here's a full breakdown of each tier's price and goodies:
EA and Respawn aren’t entirely abandoning the cash-for-passes model, though, as in addition to the Premium Battle Pass, Season 22 will also introduce Ultimate and Ultimate+ Battle Pass tiers, each offering yet more rewards – and costing $10 / $20 respectively, with no Apex Coin option. While that means some will end up forking out $40 per season if they pick up both Ultimate+ passes – good lord, people, control your hat urges – I wouldn’t expect these to draw the same kind of rancor as the original set of changes. Beyond a couple of timed-exclusive skin variants, they’re only serving up some extra crafting materials and loot crates over the Premium tier, and are more of a genuinely optional upgrade that won’t leave Apex Coin buyers in the lurch.