What you need to know
- Respawn Entertainment is expanding with a new studio located in Madison, Wisconsin in the U.S.
- This is the third studio to be part of Respawn Entertainment, in addition to the Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada teams.
- The Wisconsin studio will primarily be focused on supporting Apex Legends.
- This comes just a few weeks after the news that Respawn parent company Electronic Arts laid off hundreds of quality assurance testers working on Apex Legends.
Developer Respawn Entertainment continues to grow as one of Electronic Arts’ premiere studios with an upcoming third location.
Respawn Entertainment shared on Monday that the team is expanding with a third studio located in Madison, Wisconsin in the U.S. This studio’s primary focus is on continuing to support Apex Legends, with the team being led by Ryan Burnett, who previously worked at studios like Raven Software and Epic Games.
“At its core, this expansion represents Respawn’s commitment to work with the most skilled, curious, and creative minds in the industry. Having just passed its 4th anniversary, our aim is to continue to make Apex Legends the premiere Battle Royale on the market,” says Daniel Suarez, SVP operations at Respawn Entertainment.
“I cannot think of a better addition than the immensely talented developers in Madison working alongside our Los Angeles and Vancouver teams to help us shape what comes next.”
Respawn Entertainment first expanded in support of Apex Legends back in 2020, opening a studio in Vancouver, Canada to assist with the ongoing work the Battle Royale hit would require.
This most recent expansion comes just weeks after Electronic Arts laid off hundreds of quality assurance (QA) testers (opens in new tab) who worked on Apex Legends. Electronic Arts also reportedly cancelled an unannounced single-player Apex Legends game (opens in new tab) in the Titanfall universe. The company also announced that support for Apex Legends Mobile, which launched in 2022, would be ending.
Windows Central’s Take
On one hand, it’s cool to see Respawn Entertainment expanding. A new studio means more potential and more jobs. People I know that were laid off months ago have still been unable to find a new job, so the more positions available, the better.
At the same time, I can’t help but feel a little disappointing that it’s mainly to support Apex Legends. I get it, maintaining a live service game takes a lot of work, but it would be cool to see Respawn get to work on something that isn’t Star Wars or Apex Legends. Or, at the very, would be adjacent to Apex Legends, like a Titanfall 3 or the now-cancelled single-player game.
There’s also the optics of this studio being opened just after hundreds of people working as testers lost their jobs. I understand it’s not one-to-one, but it feels gross to watch.
