EA: Apex Legends Has "Outperformed Our Expectations," 80-Team Tournament Taking Place In September

Electronic Arts had several nice things to say about Apex Legends in its most recent financial statement, released yesterday alongside a press release announcing its biggest official esports initiative for the game to date.

You have to dig a bit to find specific statements about games in all of the material EA made available yesterday on its Investor Relations page. The press release describing the Q1 FY2020 results -- corresponding to April/May/June 2019 -- just lists Apex, among other titles, as "bringing rich new experiences to our growing communities" and delivering "operating results significantly above our expectations." The slideshow offers the usual numbers, if you want to see just how well EA has been doing overall as compared to recent years.

It's in CEO Andrew Wilson's prepared remarks that we get a little more -- though not a ton -- in the way of granular details. Wilson covered all the usual talking points, about how Apex is built "to have longevity as a live service that will continue to drive engagement over time" and "has outperformed our expectations with significant growth in daily and weekly active players," referencing the recent Season 2 launch that came with a battle pass and new character. "Season 3 is shaping up to be even bigger," he said, as if he could say anything else.

(It's worth nothing that throughout all three of those public statements -- press release, slideshow, and Wilson's prepared remarks -- there's not a single specific mention of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Take that for what it's worth, but for a game that has a big expansion coming out in just over a month, that doesn't seem like a very good sign.)

Wilson also talked about esports for Apex Legends, news of which also hit in the form of an announcement on Tuesday. The Apex Legends Preseason Invitational will take place Sept. 13-15 in Krakow, Poland, and will see 80 teams of three players each vie for $500,000 in prize money. You can learn more about the tournament on the Apex Legends site.