2021 may have only just begun, but it looks like Respawn Entertainment already has its hands full with Apex Legends for the foreseeable future.
In a Reddit AMA session over the weekend, several members of the development team took time out of their schedules to court feedback from the battle royale’s massive community as well as answer queries covering a broad range of topics. One frequently asked question put forward several times concerned upcoming next-gen upgrades being rolled out alongside native versions of Apex for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. While the Outlands are currently accessible by owners of both devices, this is done via backward compatibility rather than dedicated rereleases, meaning the visual and performance improvements made possible by superior hardware have yet to surface.
One particular element many fans are hoping to see is a boosted frame rate from the industry-standard 60 to 120 fps. The former, while largely achievable on Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro, can often dip to as low as 50 fps (and even lower on base last-gen consoles), making an effective doubling of the refresh rate a sizable change, to say the least.
According to team director Steve Ferreira, though, those goalposts are definitely reachable and “high on the priority list.” See below for the full comment:
120 FPS is one of our goals and as we continue to look at NG features and balance between what we think is best for the overall player experience for NG, we’re keeping this in mind. Can’t promise anything but with the core mechanics “feel” of Apex being such an important piece of the player experience this one is high on the priority list.
As for when all of these improvements can be expected to arrive, Respawn has yet to give a date, though we imagine it’ll want to have them in players’ hands sooner rather than later, similarly to the long-awaited Nintendo Switch version, which was recently confirmed for March. Stay tuned for further updates and feel free to comment down below letting us know what else you’d like to see from Apex Legends in the future.