“We refuse to crunch with the team,” says Apex Legends creator Respawn

Respawn has underlined its no-crunch policy, with Apex Legends director Chad Grenier saying that Respawn refuses to crunch in order to deliver content faster.

The comments come from a recent Reddit AMA from the Apex Legends development team, which saw some criticism in the comments about the game’s recently updated battle pass system, which requires players to grind more for content than previously.

Because it’s Reddit, some comments became incredibly aggressive, with one poster accusing Grenier of lying, angrily complaining that Respawn had been “extremely slow with content,” and that the team was “scared” to implement limited time modes (LTMs).

“I’ll ignore the part where you call me a liar, I actually take offense to it,” reads Grenier’s reply, “but I’ll reply anyway because that’s what kind of guy I am. We do a lot of LTMs, so we’re definitely not scared! We also see that LTMs are popular for a couple of days and have severe falloff to the point where people can’t find matches, so doing 2 weeks LTMs is not necessarily the right format.

“We also refuse to crunch the team, so we’ll probably be slower at making content than if we worked 15 hour days but that’s just not something we’re willing to do. We have nearly doubled our team size since launch to accommodate the content demands, so we’re really trying to bring you quality content at a healthy pace.”

Alongside hiring new staff, Respawn have in fact opened a new studio in Vancouver, which is focused on developing content for the game. The new studio is intended to lessen the pressure on the California team, give Respawn access to a wider area of talent, and boost support for Apex Legends.