July 2024

Apex Legends Battle Pass Costs Rise, Claimed to Benefit Players

🟣 Content Overview :

Season 22 introduces two premium battle passes at $10 each.
Apex Coins can no longer be used to purchase battle passes.
Premium option at $20 includes 10 unlocked ranks and exclusive skins.
Players will spend $40 per season instead of $30.
Community reactions are largely negative.

Streamers Visuals is revamping how its battle pass economy works in season 22, and it sounds expensive.

Every season will now have two premium battle passes starting at $10 each.

Apex Coins (AC) can no longer be used to purchase them.

Weirdest of all is the fact that Respawn Entertainment seems to be presenting this all as good news for players.

New Battle Pass System

Here's how Apex Legends battle passes have worked up through the current season 21 "Upheaval".

Every season there's been a new pass with 110 ranks worth of rewards spread across three months.

Players can grind the free track for the free rewards or pay 950 AC (roughly $10) to access the premium rewards as well.

They can also buy the Premium Battle Pass Bundle for 2800 AC (roughly $30), which includes the first 10 levels of the battle pass autocompleted and a bunch of additional rewards that aren't included in it.

Changes in Season 22

Beginning with season 22 in August, there will be two separate battle passes per season that have 60 ranks each.

They will still cost $10 but can only be purchased for real money instead of AC.

The Premium Battle Pass Bundle has been replaced by the Premium option, which is $20 per battle pass and comes with:

10 unlocked ranks
2 Legendary skin variants exclusive for a year
10 Exotic Shards
All Legends playable for the duration of the Battle Pass

The change comes alongside revamped battle pass rewards to make the best rewards quicker to earn and more plentiful.

Community Impact

But that value has come at a price.

To up the value going forward, each Premium Track Battle Pass will cost $9.99 USD and will come with the expanded rewards mentioned above.

The decision to move from AC to real-world currency is not one that was made lightly, but it does allow for a decrease in the price of Premium for the community.

Despite the use of "decrease," players who want to stay current on their battle passes will actually be spending $40 per season rather than $30.

Respawn did not immediately respond to a request for further clarification.

Player Reactions

The move away from letting people purchase battle passes with AC is also likely to go over with the community like a lead balloon.

Previously, dedicated players were able to take AC earned from previous seasons and invest it in new battle passes, essentially paying the grind forward and earning rewards with time and dedication instead of new spending.

It's not surprising that a company trying to make money would shut that down, but it's hard to see how it nets out to a big win for players.

Fans who play daily and want the full package will essentially now be paying the price of an Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC every three months.

Market Trends

Apex Legends is far from the first game to effectively raise the price of its seasonal content.

Fortnite, Destiny 2, and other games have increased the price of in-game currencies and season passes in the last year following a historic spike in inflation, or at least that's what some of the companies behind those increases said at the time.

EA, which now makes more money off of microtransactions than actually selling new games, earned $800 million in net income in 2023.