Who Is the Apex Legends Developer?

1 min read

Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind Titanfall, built Apex Legends and has run it since 2019 — under EA ownership since a 2017 acquisition.

The Apex Legends developer is Respawn Entertainment, a studio founded on 12 April 2010 by Jason West and Vince Zampella, both former leads at Infinity Ward who had worked on the original Call of Duty games.

The Titanfall connection

Before Apex Legends, Respawn's output was the Titanfall series — Titanfall in 2014 and Titanfall 2 in 2016. Apex Legends is set in the Titanfall universe, and its battle royale format was a surprise pivot: the game was announced and released on the same day in February 2019, with almost no pre-launch marketing.

Ownership

Electronic Arts acquired Respawn in a deal announced in November 2017 and completed on 1 December 2017, worth $151 million in cash plus up to $164 million in equity tied to performance. Respawn has operated as an EA subsidiary since, and EA publishes Apex Legends.

What else the studio makes

Respawn is not a single-game studio. Alongside Apex Legends, it has shipped Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019), Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond (2020) and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023), and has further Star Wars projects in development.

The practical point

Support, account and billing issues route through EA, but design decisions, patch notes and season content come from Respawn directly.