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Respawn Vancouver opens to take over development of Apex Legends

On Respawn's 10th anniversary, the company opens a new studio to continue development on their battle royale.

Donovan Erskine

May 18, 2020 12:45 PM

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Respawn Entertainment celebrates its 10 year anniversary today. Over the past decade, the studio has released a varying range of games from the Titanfall series, to 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. One of their most notable releases however, was last year’s Apex Legends. This iteration on the Battle Royale genre shattered expectations and records upon launch, and has held its place among the top of the genre over a year later. Respawn announced today that they are opening a new studio in Vancouver, which will take over full development on Apex Legends for the foreseeable future. 

Henry Lee (Head of Operations), Steven Ferreira (Team Director), and Chad Grenier (Apex Legends Game Director) will head up the new studio. The trio spoke with GameIndustry.biz, where they went in-depth on the company's 10 year anniversary and the decision to open Respawn Vancouver, and what can be expected from them. While there are already a number of Respawn Studios, this will be the first outside of their existing California location.

"This is a great opportunity, not just for the Vancouver studio to bring some new creative challenges to people already there, but also to the local industry in terms of being part of the Apex Legends roadmap. So we're very excited about bringing this to Vancouver and hopefully greater Canada as well…” says Lee when discussing the benefits of expanding the Respawn brand into Vancouver. Respawn sees this new studio as not only a good move for their company, but for the state of the gaming industry in Canada.

Respawn has done a solid job at keeping Apex Legends up to date since its March 2019 release. Just last week, season 5 launched, bringing about new map changes, weapon tweaks, and a new playable character - Loba. The move to open a new studio shows that Respawn is committed to the ongoing development of Apex Legends for the long haul.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_