Apex Legends has had a turbulent evolution. Year 1 was largely spent establishing how the game fits within the battle royale space, Year 2 was hugely transformative in terms of storytelling and meta, and Year 3 was a love letter to the legacy of Titanfall. Apex Legends Season 16 kicks off just after the conclusion of the battle royale's fourth year, which was the game's roughest year to date as the gameplay and meta worryingly stagnated, the ongoing narrative diverged into several uninteresting storylines that haven't gone anywhere meaningful, and an unrewarding Collection Event left players feeling unhappy. Going into Year 5, Respawn needs to cultivate and improve upon what it's created, not just maintain its heading and simply add more of the same to it.

The Apex Legends team seems to agree, seeing as Season 16 is the first season for Apex Legends where we aren't getting a new playable legend and the team has already confirmed the front half won't be all that story-heavy. We're getting less new stuff up front to create room for the Apex Legends team to shift priorities going into Year 5. The first of these changes are sweeping, long-awaited adjustments to the existing cast of playable legends, but Respawn is also using Year 5 to address one of the most glaring issues Apex Legends has struggled with: its unapproachable nature in regards to new players.

After talking to the team about how Apex Legends Season 16 is an ideal on-ramp for new players, I met with game director Steve Ferreira and design director Evan Nikolich to discuss what Respawn has learned over the past four years of Apex Legends, as well as how those four years are informing what's to come in Year 5 and beyond.