Apex Legends Game Director Clarifies Why Respawn Changed the Season 7 Battle Pass System

Apex Legends launched its Season 7 earlier this week with a new map, legend, and drivable vehicle, among other changes. While most of the fresh content has elated the players, a particular feature has drawn a lot of criticism. It is the Apex Legends Season 7 Battle Pass.

After the season seven patch went live, the community criticized the updated battle pass system for making progression feel too slow and unrewarding. To their credit, Respawn responded quickly and reduced the XP required per star by half, from 10,000 to 5,000. Besides that, weekly challenges will also require less time to complete.

While these tweaks should make leveling up battle pass substantially easier, many players are still unhappy with the new progression system. The situation concerns casual players who don’t log in and fulfill daily challenges, which now are essential to leveling up. To max out their battle passes, they would have to spend a couple of hours every day while not being rewarded reasonably for the grind.

Heading into Season 7, Respawn overhauled the battle pass progression to make it more streamlined and rewarding. Now, Apex Legends Game Director Chad Grenier has explained the reasons for changing how the battle pass works in season seven.

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Respawn explains the reasons behind changing the Apex Legends Battle Pass system in Season 7

The team at Respawn hosted an AMA session on Apex Legends’ sub-Reddit a few hours ago. The devs wanted to interact with fans about Apex’s new season’s expansions, including the battle pass. Unsurprisingly enough, a lot of players were curiously seeking answers.

Commenting on the post, u/Ender112 asked, “What was wrong with last season’s pass? Was only slightly rolling back the battle pass actually, a negotiation tactic like some people have said?”

In response to the question, Chad Grenier summed up the two changes they made to the battle pass, each having its own reason.

The Respawn dev wrote, “First, we streamlined the challenge system to reward stars, and 10 stars is a battle pass level. We implemented this change with the intent to simplify how the battle pass works and more clearly indicate what a challenge is worth.”

“The second change was to the difficulty or time investment needed on the challenges. We’ve seen in our data that most players were completing the battle pass about 2/3 through the season and then not having much left to do in the season.”

The team hoped that players would enjoy jumping into the game more if they always had something to progress and earn. Respawn adjusted the challenge system, so players had something to accomplish during a season’s third and final month.

Apex’s game director added, “This change had the players’ interest in mind and was calculated in a manner that would still allow the majority of our players to finish leveling without purchasing additional levels.”

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“Respawn always has your interests in mind, so please assume positive intent!” – Apex’s game director

Before pointing out the reasons for the changes, Grenier also addressed the rumblings about how the battle pass system was “intentionally broken”, as some people had suggested.

A Reddit user had blamed the studio for using “a negotiation tactic”. They even predicted potential tweaks Respawn would roll out to the changed system should they receive backlash. Ironically enough, Respawn’s tweaks to address the battle pass issue turned out to be very precise to the user’s comments.

However, Apex’s game director has assured that the team has the player’s best interests in mind. He requested fans to assume positive intent.

“We are not trying to play negotiation games with our players. Respawn is made up of passionate gamers, just like yourself. We also aren’t trying to secretly force you all into buying more battle pass levels.”

Grenier added that they have more changes planned in the coming weeks. They intend to give players more authority in completing the challenges. While Respawn’s battle pass overhaul created an uproar in the community, the devs quickly addressed the issue by making necessary changes. They have always encouraged discussion and are open to the community’s feedback.