After thousands of negative reviews and public outcry on social media, Respawn announced today that one particularly controversial change for the battle pass system was going to be reverted. Other changes, however, will remain in place for season 22.
Players will now once again be able to purchase battle passes with Apex Coins, the currency which can be bought for real money and also earned via each Apex season’s battle pass. Respawn made the announcement on X/Twitter today. “We realize we could have handled the Battle Pass changes better,” the post reads. “That’s on us.”
The reason buying the battle pass with Apex Coins is such a big deal to many players is it effectively provides a means of keeping costs down while playing the game. Playing through and completing one season’s battle pass, throughout the game’s history, has awarded players with enough Apex Coins to purchase the next season’s battle pass without spending any extra money. For some players, the battle pass system effectively acted as a one-time $10 purchase for cosmetics and extra goodies, provided they loyally played the game. In the original battle pass changes for season 22, Respawn announced that option would be no more, and players would have to spend money on every split’s battle pass from there on out. The announcement subsequently led to tremendous review-bombing.
That change is gone, to the delight of many players. However, there are still some changes in the battle pass system for season 22 that will still be present.
Season 22 will still feature two battle passes, one for each ranked split. Today’s announcement reiterated the plan for player’s to be able to unlock the next battle pass for free by completing a set of challenges at the beginning of season 22, and also claimed again that the rewards would be more frequent for more players.
More cynical fans have accused the “two battle passes per season” move as more of a greedy cash grab, but with the ability to unlock battle passes with Apex Coins now in place, players should be able to unlock both splits’ battle passes for free if they complete the challenges set in the first split and save the Apex Coins they earned from previous seasons for the next second split’s battle pass. This way, players will be able to see if the new battle pass system is truly worth it, or something they’d rather see Respawn axe.
“Your priorities are our priorities: cheaters, game stability, and quality of life updates are top of mind,” the post says, echoing plenty of players complaints over the past several months. “We need to get better and it’s why we’re acknowledging them here.”
If Respawn manages to pull off getting better at mitigating those complaints, Apex won’t be nearly as dead as originally feared.
