Apex Legends dev explains why they often launch new guns & Legends overpowered

An Apex Legends dev has revealed why Respawn prefers to launch new guns and Legends in a “strong” state, rather than having to buff them shortly after they’ve arrived in the Outlands.

Whether it was Seer, Horizon, the CAR SMG, or even the Season 13 IMC Armories, one of the biggest criticisms towards Respawn is their tendency to release new content that’s too strong or powerful.

As a result, many of these features have to be dialed back or nerfed later to ensure matches are balanced and fair.

While a lot of the community assumes Respawn implements new features in an overpowered state by accident, it turns out this isn’t the case.

A dev recently addressed the topic and revealed that it’s better to release new content on the “stronger side” as in the long run, it aids overall game balance.

Apex dev reveals why new guns & Legends are often too strong

On June 1, Live Balance Designer John ‘JayBiebs’ Larson responded to a Weapon Wednesday thread on the Apex Legends subreddit to discuss the state of the CAR SMG.

While his insight on the gun was interesting, it was his comments on balancing that garnered the most attention as he revealed that Respawn often releases new features on the “strong side” deliberately.

This ensures that the gun, Legend, or new piece of content gets a lot of “reps” from the community, giving the balance team a better understanding of what changes need to be made.

By placing the new addition in the “spotlight by millions of players” Respawn can quickly diagnose which aspects of the feature are fun, frustrating, or require balance changes.

From the perspective of the developers, the priority will always be making the new content fun and ensuring it fills a gap in the gameplay experience.

Therefore, to make sure it is tested and enjoyed by Apex players, they’d “rather release strong and nerf, than release weak and buff” when the hype has disappeared.

It’s not very often that the community gets an insight into the balancing of Respawn’s battle royale and hearing from the devs directly gives us a better understanding of their methods.

So, while it may be frustrating at first when a new piece of content feels overpowered or broken, in the long run, the devs usually have a plan to bring these issues back in line.

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