SUMMARY
- Apex Legends and Counter Strike 2 share the same game engine.
- Apex Legends has used a modified version of CS2's engine.
Apex Legends is one of the finest battle royale games out there. Over its lifespan of four years, the game has added 20+ legends and heaps of additional content.
However, like any other game, Apex Legends too has its own share of bugs, issues, and other problems that players face. All this boils down to the game engine that developers use to build the game.
Does Apex Legends use the same engine as Counter-Strike 2?
While Apex Legends uses the same engine as Counter-Strike, the engine used for Counter-Strike 2 is an upgraded version. Apex Legends and earlier Counter-Strike games share the same engine, that is the Source engine.
However, Counter-Strike 2 which was released earlier in 2023 was based on the new Source 2 engine. After making many games of the franchise on the Source engine, Epic Games upgraded the franchise to the newer version with Counter-Strike 2.
Source, a 3D game engine, is the IP of Valve. It is a successor to GoldSrc and made its debut in 2004. It was written in C++. Over the years it also branched into various versions before being succeeded by Source 2 in 2015.
Apex Legends has always been based on the Source engine, however, its developers, Respawn Entertainment have made sure to use the engine to suit their development needs. Evan Nikolich, Design Director at Respawn (Apex Legends), mentioned to Beebom that they have “modified the engine heavily since.”
He adds that the version of the Source engine that was used for Portal 2 was not in fact built with the intention to support a Battle Royale with large open spaces. They modified it to build a battle royale on it.
Apex Legends will not upgrade to Source 2
When Counter-Strike 2 upgraded to Source 2, a lot of fans had questions about Apex Legends too would make the shift. However, the devs said that at least for now they have no plans of doing so. Changing Apex Legends’ current engine completely would require too much effort from the team of developers at Respawn.
They say, “An engine overhaul would pull critical resources from supporting the live game.” This would make the possibility of a gameplay change of such a huge scale impossible for the time being. If they decide to focus on an engine upgrade, it will impact the seasonal changes and patches as well.
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When asked about the future plans and whether a Source 2 engine upgrade for Apex Legends could be expected in the future, Evan said, “We have changed the engine technology in so many ways and will continue to grow the engine to serve the needs of Apex. No plans to integrate Source 2 at this time.”
Notably, this isn’t the first time that Respawn has voiced its decision to stick by its heavily modified Source engine for Apex Legends. In an earlier tweet, Respawn’s tech director, Michael Kalas had said that their engine would never be replaced in the Apex Legends as well as the Titanfall universe.