Apex Legends' initial design began before Titanfall 2's release in 2016, but executive producer Drew McCoy stated that work on the game didn't begin until spring 2017.According to McCoy, the studio wasn't sure what their next game would be. But they knew they wanted to make Titanfall sequels. As with the development of Titanfall 2, the studio split into several small teams to create small game prototypes. This small team was trying to produce innovations using different elements within the same genre. But the success of Playerunknown's Battleground inspired them. Applying previous Titanfall mechanics to this prototype, the developer group considered it a successful attempt in the Battle Royale format, and the studio decided to expand this model.The developers decided that having pilotable Titans in their previous games might be unstable in a battle royale setting, and instead focused on building strong character classes that they felt were appropriate for the Titanfall series as well. They found that some of the maneuverability features of previous Titanfall games, such as wall running, would again make gameplay very difficult in a battle royale style, making it near impossible to pinpoint the direction of threats.Design director Mackey McCandlish also stated that with Apex Legends, they want to challenge the conventions of the battle-royale genre and add unique features from their studios to games in this class. He felt that the three-man roster selection and 20-team cap gave players more chances to win on average, while also being more in tune with the kind of intimate play they were hoping to achieve.Once the game was largely complete, Arturo Castro, Respawn's director of brand marketing, began work on how the studio would name and market the game. Castro realized that many elements of Titanfall are also present in this game. However, the game didn't offer Titans, Pilots, or a single-player experience. Therefore, he chose to treat the game as a new game.Although the game was in a different category and lane, they were undecided about the name. Not knowing what to do with this game, which contains both Titanfall elements and not very similar to it, the studio wanted to create a combination of the two games. In Titanfall 2, there was a group called Apex Predators. This group of pilots housed the most efficient and elite fighters. The studio also wanted to make players feel like elite warriors while also proving that Titanfall elements exist.After many disagreements, the name of the game was determined as Apex Legends with a large majority of votes and was released on February 4, 2019.Since its release, Apex Legends has been receiving updates called seasons like other battle royale-style games. Each season, a new weapon, item, map and character is added while the existing story continues. The date and validity period of each season are shown below.SeasonSeason NameDates1Wild Frontier19 March 2019 – 18 June 20192Battle Charge2 July 2019 – 1 October 20193Meltdown1 October 2019 – 4 February 20204Assimilation4 February 2020 – 12 May 20205Fortune's Favor12 May 2020 – 18 August 20206Boosted18 August 2020 – 4 November 20207Ascension4 November 2020 – 2 February 20218Mayhem2 February 2021 - 3 May 20219LegacyMay 4, 2021 – August 3, 202110EmergenceAugust 3 - Present, 2021