Tencent, the Chinese tech giant, seems to want to dip their hands in another battle royale pot. According to the South China Morning Post, a “source with direct knowledge on the matter” stated the Chinese company is currently in talks with Electronic Arts to bring the company’s new smash hit battle royale game Apex Legends from Respawn Entertainment to China.
Tencent has already brought two popular battle royale games in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and the worldwide phenomenon Fortnite to the country. The company also owns a minority stake in Fortnite developer Epic Games. Thus, it makes sense for the company to try and partner with Electronic Arts on this endeavor to reach more players.
If the Chinese company is able to strike a deal with Electronic Arts, Apex Legends would be the first major title Tencent has brought to the country since the video game ban was lifted late last year. While the ban was lifted last year, shockingly it took over month for Tencent to have games be approved for licensing again despite being one of the biggest video game companies in the country.
Since its announcement and release on February 4, Apex Legends has achieved resounding success. The game surpassed ten million players with one million concurrent players within its first week. Since then, earlier this week, Respawn Entertainment’s CEO Vince Zampella stated that the game had hit an astonishing 25 million players with two million concurrent players.
The new battle royale game has even becoming a hit with the streaming community and has already surpassed the battle royale behemoth Fortnite in views on Twitch thanks to events such as Respawn’s Twitch Rivals event. The success Apex Legends has found in its short existence, is a testament to the impact the battle royale genre has had on the video game industry.