The worst part of the new Apex Legends battle pass plan is being reversed

You can see it coming a million light years away: A game developer announces something that its players are obviously going to be infuriated by, and then a week or two later posts a black jpg with white text that says, one way or another, 'Oops! Our bad.'

So it has gone for Apex Legends, which today reversed the most unpopular aspect of the new battle pass structure it announced two weeks ago.

The changes were controversial for a couple reasons. The first complaint was that Apex will now get two smaller battle passes per season instead of one, effectively doubling the cost of each season's premium tiers. That isn't changing. The second complaint—the bit that is being reversed—was that premium battle pass tracks were no longer going to be obtainable with Apex Coins, a currency that can be earned in the battle passes themselves. Instead, direct $10 USD transactions were going to be the only way to unlock those premium tiers.

Today, Respawn announced that it's scrapping the USD-only part of the plan. Premium battle pass tracks will continue to be obtainable by spending 950 Apex Coins. Since those premium tracks include 1,300 Apex Coins, players who complete a premium battle pass track will be able to use their AC to unlock the next one.

There will still be new real money-only battle pass tiers, which are now called Ultimate tiers. The basic $10 Ultimate tier will include extra Apex Packs and Crafting Metals as instant unlocks, but won't contain cosmetics you can't get in the regular Premium tier that can be unlocked with AC.

An update on our new Battle Pass: pic.twitter.com/ga8NB8cwFBJuly 24, 2024

The change that isn't being reversed—the splitting of each season's battle pass into two—wasn't as unanimously unpopular as the Apex Coins change. It's true that having two 60-tier battle passes per season instead of a single 110-tier battle pass means players have to spend more to unlock roughly the same number of tiers, but in theory they'll get more good things for their