Apex Legends Mobile is already closing down after less than a year

Well, that wasn’t a very long run. Apex Legends Mobile, a pocket-sized spinoff of the megahit battle royale shooter Apex Legends, is coming to an end soon, per an announcement by developer Respawn on Twitter. After a release on May 17 of last year, as well as being named the iPhone Game of the Year in Apple’s 2022 App Store Awards, the game didn’t even make it nine months before the surprise announcement of its sunsetting.

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Per Respawn’s statement, this decision was made due to “factors beyond their control” that made it impossible for the team to “maintain the high-quality experience and content that our players deserve.” The decision seems to be part of a wider rethinking of Respawn’s overall mobile game efforts, as the announcement also came with news that Battlefield Mobile, which released just last November, would also be shutting down.

Respawn has made clear in an FAQ that Apex Legends Mobile is still playable for the time being, although all in-game real money purchases have already been disabled, and the game has been removed from online stores. The sunsetting process is slated to take 90 days, with all services being shut off on May 1 at 7 PM ET. Any existing in-game purchases or currencies will persist in the interim, but will of course be removed along with the game, and no refunds will be issued.

The news about both mobile games came at the same time as Respawn broke the news that another of their titles, the upcoming Jedi Survivors, will be receiving a six week delay. This pushes its scheduled release date back to April 28.

Update: After the announcement about Apex Legends Mobile, Stephen Totilo of Axios stated that, in a call with investors, EA’s CEO described the shutdown as a closing of this “version” of the game, meaning there could be plans for a new iteration of Apex on mobile devices coming in the future.