Respawn is trying to balance Apex Legends by just making every Legend OP

Apex Legends is trying to get players back and new players in, as it’s been on a continual downward trend of players since 2023 – a trend that hasn’t let up until now.

From January’s average of under 70,000 concurrent players on Steam, to April pulling an average of around 110,000 and regular peaks of around 190,000, Apex has managed to start mounting a comeback. Though it’s still way off from its peak in 2023.

Part of this could be attributed to content updates like a new map and weapons, arguably the biggest factor is Legend updates.

Class system changes, character reworks, the EVO system being entirely revamped and adding character perks – every element of the Legends has been completely changed in 2025.

According to Senior Game Designer John Ellenton, this is a result of the team changing their philosophy. Rather than focusing on gunplay, they are trying to make every Legend and their unique abilities overpowered. And it’s working.

No one’s broken if everyone is

For a long time, the most popular Legends in Apex stayed the same. It was Wraith, Octane, Pathfinder, Horizon; the most mobile, hard-carry characters. So, the dev team had to figure out how to make people swap off the characters they already love.

John Ellenton said: “We’ve been trying to do these bigger, more substantial [changes], like what you saw on the season with the Ash and Ballistic where we’re like, ‘Okay, now we gotta break them, we gotta make them really strong, otherwise nobody’s gonna switch.’ How do you get someone off their Wraith main?

“It’s always a risk learning a new character, and the best way to do that is to give them quite a bit more juice than what we were doing in the past.”

While they want to release new characters like Sparrow strong, there’s a big portion of the existing cast that needs a little love. Someone’s new favorite Legend may already be in the game.

Ballistic took over Apex Legends in one patch after spending over a year in obscurity, with just a few tweaks turning him into a monster. Before, the dev team was scared of a character being OP, but they’ve since shifted their perspective.

Instead of nerfing Ash, Ellenton believes the best way to get her out of the meta is to buff other characters.

“Lately, we’ve been letting Legends be hot a little bit longer, because we want to see over time where they settle, because it always starts this way. The pick rate goes really high when the new legend comes out, and ideally they taper into a good top 5, top 10 spot.”

Obviously, not every Legend in the game can be top 10. There wouldn’t be good Legends if there weren’t niche ones. So, how is Respawn ensuring that one oppressive meta doesn’t take over the game?

The answer is simple, and it’s all about counterplay.

Making counterplay a priority

Sparrow, the new Legend for Season 25, is strong on paper. He’s got a great scan ability, a double jump, and a damaging ultimate that can trap enemies in a bad spot.

The scan arrow was the first ability designed, with the devs building his kit around it and testing several iterations of other abilities to pair with it.

Sparrow immediately gave me flashbacks to the dreaded scan meta, when Apex became a game about tracking silhouettes through smoke screens.

“We didn’t want full wallhacks, and you don’t actually get full hacks with [Sparrow],” Ellenton explained. “That’s sort of where it’s different. You’ll get a reveal, but the reveal is a marker over their head. So, you don’t get an exact position. You don’t know who you’ve revealed.”

“It is a long track, but it’s not 100% perfect. I was very cautious because I don’t want to bring back head glitching long scans, and we want to give counterplay for the people on scan-side, too.”

Respawn Entertainment

The same is true of Sparrow’s double jump. I was concerned the positive reception to Ash’s rework could result in mobility creep across the board, but Ellenton said that this isn’t the case.

“Movement is sort of our special sauce for Apex, and as we’re seeing with Ash, her first pick rate skyrocketed. People love the dash. They love moving around. So, where we can, we definitely want to do it, but we don’t want to just give it to everybody, because then it’ll be very hard for new players to come in and shoot everybody zooming all over the place. We gotta be careful with it.”

After talking with one of the leading minds behind Apex’s design, it’s clear the mindset has changed. They’re trying to make Legends feel legendary, but with enough restraint to prevent them taking over.

When Dexerto spoke with ImperialHal and iiTzTimmy last year, they advocated a similar approach to balance: Make every Legend overpowered.

For some, it will be reassuring to see the devs and pros are aligned on that, at least.