Epic Games CEO Says Apex Legends Has Helped Fortnite

A lot of people are calling Apex Legends the Fortnite killer, but Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney sees things differently.

There has been a bit of a rivalry between Apex Legends and Fortnite ever since the former gained "overnight success" status. Although the games are quite different, it's easy to see why.

A lot of popular Fortnite streamers moved to Apex - some for the promotional cash - and a lot of players did as well. The latter reached 50 million players far faster than Fortnite did, and it only seems to be growing from there.

According to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, though, Apex Legends has done nothing but help Fortnite's success. He stated as much in an interview with GamesBeat.

The 50 million player mark is in the rearview mirror for Fortnite. As Sweeney put it, "We’re very close to hitting 250 million Fortnite players. Since Apex Legends came out, we’ve gained an Apex Legends worth of Fortnite players, which is amazing."

When asked about Apex Legends slowing Fortnite down, Sweeney responded by saying:

"We hit a Fortnite non-event peak twice after Apex was out. We haven’t seen any visible cut into Fortnite. It’s a funny thing. The only game you can see where its peaks cut into Fortnite playtime is FIFA. It’s another game for everybody, wildly popular around the world."

Sweeney went on to add that he thinks Apex "re-energized a lot of shooter players" and brought them back to Fortnite. He said, "It’s awesome to see other games picking up on battle royale, adding their unique spin to it and advancing the state of the industry."

While Respawn and Apex Legends still need to go a long way before they can truly compete for the throne, it's clear that they've done enough to motivate Epic Games at the very least. Fortnite gave us a bunch of free loot - including the opportunity to earn a free Battle Pass - right after Apex Legends hit shelves.

Competition is good for every industry, including gaming. The more good games are out, the more developers need to compete for our attention. This means more updates, more content, and more free stuff from the games we love.

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