Apex Legends devs respond to backlash over Season 1 battle pass rewards

After much anticipation, Respawn Entertainment finally unveiled the battle pass for Apex Legends Season 1: Wild Frontier – but all the hype was washed away for some, as the rewards for ranking up the tiers were considered underwhelming, to say the least.

Released on February 4, Apex Legends was an instant hit, but players quickly became eager for new content to keep the game fresh.

Season 1 was slated for release sometime in March, and after weeks of growing impatience, was finally announced on March 18, with a launch set for March 19.

After the initial elation subsided, and players investigated the contents of the battle pass, the excitement was quickly soured, with many voicing their disappointment with the “bland” rewards.

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Many of the character and weapon skins were admittedly dull, with plenty of browns and dark greens, maybe lacking some of the gold and colorful sheen that was expected.

After the announcement of Season 1, Respawn released a blog post, in which they explained their “philosophy” for the first battle pass as a way of directly addressing some of the complaints.

“We’ve tried to create a battle pass where first-time spenders can get a strong base of weapon and character cosmetics to fill out their initial collection at a deep discount,” the blog post states.

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They also explain why there are not “challenges”, like those that are used in Fortnite to help players rank up their battle pass faster.

“You’ll notice the first version isn’t built around a complex quest system where you need to do a 720 backflip off of Watchtower Artemis and get two Wingman headshots before hitting the ground. While we think there’s really cool design space in quests and challenges for future Battle Passes, we wanted the initial version to allow our players to just play and learn the game.”

Although some players might appreciate not having to grind out tricky challenges, others are disappointed, as it can also add an extra layer to the gameplay, especially when dealing with the battle royale genre, which, while fun, can also get stale quickly if there isn’t any ‘layering’, like challenges provide.

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Perhaps the coolest thing about the Season 1 battle pass though, is that players can earn enough coins by ranking it up to get the Season 2 battle pass for free, assuming it is the same price as Season 1 at 950 Apex coins.

As for the skins and cosmetics themselves, the greys, browns, and greens on show in the first skins which all players get with the battle pass, appears to just be a design choice – but it’s one that has not resonated well with players.