Apex Legends has generated more than 3.4 billion dollars in lifetime net bookings since its surprise launch in February 2019, and Electronic Arts disclosed that the game’s net bookings were up double digits year over year in fiscal 2026, its strongest fiscal year on record (Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release; CEO Andrew Wilson, Q4 FY24 earnings call). The Apex Legends Global Series raised its Year 6 season prize pool to 7 million dollars, a 1 million dollar jump over Year 5, spread across three 2 million dollar LAN events (ALGS, Year 6 season overview). Respawn Entertainment’s anti-cheat team has now issued more than 400,000 permanent bans since Season 23, with a single April 2026 wave removing 73,591 accounts in one pass (Respawn Entertainment, anti-cheat disclosures, 2026). And the battle royale still commands six-figure crowds on Steam alone, with concurrent players peaking above 624,000 in February 2023 and above 200,000 as recently as July 2026 (SteamDB, 2023-2026). This analysis consolidates data from Electronic Arts investor relations, the Apex Legends Global Series, Esports Charts, and 12 other primary sources to map where Apex Legends stands in 2026.
TL;DR
- Apex Legends passed 3.4 billion dollars in lifetime net bookings as of the Q4 FY24 earnings call in May 2024 (Electronic Arts, CEO Andrew Wilson).
- Apex Legends net bookings rose double digits year over year in fiscal 2026, and Q4 FY26 was its strongest net bookings quarter yet (Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release).
- EA’s fiscal 2026 net bookings hit a record 8.026 billion dollars, up 9% year over year, aided by Apex Legends and Battlefield 6 (Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release).
- The all-time Steam concurrent-player peak is 624,473, reached February 18, 2023, during the Season 16 launch (SteamDB).
- ALGS Year 6 set a season prize pool of 7 million dollars, a 1 million dollar increase over Year 5 (Apex Legends Global Series, Year 6 season overview).
- The ALGS Year 5 Championship in Sapporo drew a peak of 420,378 concurrent viewers and 5.97 million hours watched (Esports Charts).
- Respawn Entertainment has issued more than 400,000 permanent bans for cheating since Season 23 (Respawn Entertainment, anti-cheat disclosures).
- A single Season 28 Split 2 ban wave in April 2026 removed 73,591 accounts, 95.4% of them on PC (Respawn Entertainment, via anti-cheat reporting).
- EA’s official lifetime player figure, last updated in April 2021, stands at more than 100 million registered players (Electronic Arts).
- Cross-progression has been mandatory across every supported platform since October 26, 2023 (Electronic Arts, Cross Progression announcement).
- Apex Legends Mobile shut down by May 1, 2023, less than a year after its May 2022 launch (Axios; GameSpot; Polygon).
1. Net Bookings and EA Financial Performance
Apex Legends closed fiscal 2026 as one of the two franchises EA credited with its best year on record, alongside Battlefield 6’s launch. Electronic Arts reported that Apex Legends net bookings rose by double digits year over year in fiscal 2026, and that Q4 FY26 was the franchise’s strongest net bookings quarter to date. That marks a reversal: a year earlier, EA had guided for roughly 5 percentage points of headwind from Apex Legends and catalog titles weighing on fiscal 2026 growth. Instead, the live-service shooter helped carry EA to record full-year net bookings.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| EA fiscal 2026 net bookings (record) | 8.026 billion dollars, up 9% year over year | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release |
| EA Q4 FY26 net bookings | 1.864 billion dollars | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release |
| EA Q3 FY26 net bookings | 3.046 billion dollars, up 38% year over year | Electronic Arts, Q3 FY26 earnings release |
| Apex Legends FY26 net bookings growth | Up double digits year over year | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release |
| Apex Legends Q4 FY26 net bookings | Franchise’s strongest quarter on record | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release |
| Apex Legends lifetime net bookings | More than 3.4 billion dollars | Dexerto, reporting EA CEO Andrew Wilson, Q4 FY24 call (May 2024) |
| FY26 guidance headwind flagged a year earlier | About 5 percentage points from Apex Legends and catalog | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY25 earnings release |
| Estimated first-month revenue after February 2019 launch | About 92 million dollars | Electronic Arts launch-period reporting |
Note: EA reports net bookings, not GAAP revenue, for franchise performance; net bookings reflect the amount EA would have recorded as revenue in a period absent deferrals. For broader Steam-side monetization trends across the platform, see our Steam statistics.
2. Player Base and Steam Concurrency
Apex Legends launched on February 4, 2019, with no pre-announcement, and still holds up as one of the fastest-growing shooters of its era. The battle royale hit 1 million players in its first 8 hours, 2.5 million in 24 hours, and 50 million within its first month, according to Electronic Arts’ own launch-week disclosures. EA’s most recent official lifetime total, from April 2021, put registered players above 100 million, a figure the company has not refreshed publicly since. On Steam alone, where Apex Legends has been available since November 2020, SteamDB shows the game still pulling six-figure concurrent crowds in 2026, even as monthly averages have cooled from their 2023 highs.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Players in first 8 hours (Feb 2019) | 1 million | Electronic Arts, launch disclosure |
| Players in first 24 hours | 2.5 million | Electronic Arts, launch disclosure |
| Players in first 7 days | 25 million | Electronic Arts, launch disclosure |
| Players in first 30 days | 50 million | Electronic Arts, launch disclosure |
| Lifetime registered players (most recent official figure) | More than 100 million | Electronic Arts, April 2021 disclosure |
| All-time Steam concurrent-player peak | 624,473 (Feb 18, 2023, Season 16 launch) | SteamDB, Apex Legends charts |
| Steam concurrent-player peak, March 2026 | 287,202 | SteamDB |
| Steam player count, July 2026 (daily average / 24-hour peak) | About 98,600 average / 209,129 peak | SteamDB |
Context: EA does not break out platform-by-platform totals, so console and Origin/EA App numbers are not publicly disclosed; Steam is the only platform with continuously auditable concurrent-player data. For how Apex Legends compares against other battle royale audiences, see our Fortnite statistics.
3. ALGS Year 6: Prize Pools and Format
The Apex Legends Global Series enters its sixth competitive year with its largest prize pool yet, a sign EA is still investing in the esport even as it manages the base game’s live-service costs. ALGS Year 6 carries a total season prize pool of 7 million dollars, a 1 million dollar increase over Year 5, split across two Pro League splits and three LAN events. Each of the three LAN majors, Split 1 Playoffs in Riyadh, Split 2 Playoffs in Las Vegas, and the Championship in Sapporo, carries its own 2 million dollar prize pool, while Pro League play pays out 500,000 dollars per split across four regions.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| ALGS Year 6 total season prize pool | 7,000,000 dollars (up 1,000,000 dollars vs Year 5) | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| Split 1 Playoffs prize pool (Riyadh, Jul 2026) | 2,000,000 dollars | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| Split 2 Playoffs prize pool (Las Vegas, Oct-Nov 2026) | 2,000,000 dollars | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| Championship prize pool (Sapporo, Jan 2027) | 2,000,000 dollars | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| Pro League prize money per split, across 4 regions | 500,000 dollars | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| Pro League teams per region | 30 teams | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| Teams competing at each LAN event | 40 teams | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
Note: ALGS Year 6’s Championship will not conclude until January 2027, so full-season viewership and payout comparisons will not be final until then. For prize-pool trends across the wider esports calendar, see our esports statistics.
4. ALGS Viewership: The Sapporo Championship
ALGS Year 5 wrapped in January 2026 with its Championship at the Daiwa House PREMIST DOME in Sapporo, Japan, a 2 million dollar LAN event that drew 40 teams. Esports Charts recorded a peak of 420,378 concurrent viewers, an average of 170,179 viewers, and 5.97 million hours watched across the full Championship. The Group Stage kickoff told a more mixed story: its peak of 169,700 viewers ran about 8% below the 2024 edition’s kickoff peak, hours watched fell 38.5% year over year, yet average viewership actually rose 5.5%, driven by strong engagement whenever Japanese rosters played.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Year 5 Championship prize pool | 2,000,000 dollars | Liquipedia, ALGS 2026 Championship |
| Teams competing | 40 | Liquipedia, ALGS 2026 Championship |
| Event dates and location | Jan 15-18, 2026, Sapporo, Japan | Liquipedia, ALGS 2026 Championship |
| Peak concurrent viewers (full Championship) | 420,378 | Esports Charts, ALGS 2026 Championship |
| Average viewers (full Championship) | 170,179 | Esports Charts, ALGS 2026 Championship |
| Hours watched (full Championship) | 5.97 million | Esports Charts, ALGS 2026 Championship |
| Group Stage kickoff peak viewers vs 2024 kickoff | 169,700 (down about 8%) | Esports Charts, kickoff viewership report |
| Group Stage kickoff hours watched vs 2024 kickoff | 1.16 million (down 38.5%) | Esports Charts, kickoff viewership report |
Outlier: the kickoff’s rising average viewership despite falling hours watched shows a shorter, more concentrated audience rather than a shrinking one, largely tied to Fnatic’s all-Japanese roster drawing local viewers during the pools featuring Japanese teams.
5. Anti-Cheat and Competitive Integrity
Cheating has been one of Apex Legends’ most persistent problems since launch, and Respawn now publishes running tallies of its enforcement. Respawn Entertainment has issued more than 400,000 permanent bans since Season 23, and a single wave tied to the Season 28 Split 2 launch in April 2026 removed 73,591 accounts in one pass. PC remains, in Respawn’s own words, “the biggest battleground by a huge margin”: 70,242 of those bans, 95.4% of the total, came from PC accounts, versus 3,349 on console. The same wave broke out device-specific detections for XIM and Titan input adapters, HWID spoofers, and DMA cheat hardware.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent bans issued since Season 23 | More than 400,000 | Respawn Entertainment, anti-cheat disclosures |
| Total accounts banned, Season 28 Split 2 wave (Apr 2026) | 73,591 | Gameriv, reporting Respawn anti-cheat data |
| Share of that wave on PC vs console | 70,242 PC (95.4%) vs 3,349 console (4.6%) | Gameriv, reporting Respawn anti-cheat data |
| XIM/Titan input-adapter bans in that wave | 2,911 | Gameriv, reporting Respawn anti-cheat data |
| HWID spoofer bans in that wave | 4,405 | Gameriv, reporting Respawn anti-cheat data |
| DMA cheat-hardware bans in that wave | 1,103 | Gameriv, reporting Respawn anti-cheat data |
| Single ban wave, April 24, 2026 | 28,267 accounts; 6.6 million Ranked Points removed | Gameriv, Season 28 ban wave report |
| Teaming reports, change since February 2026 | Down 33% | Electronic Arts, anti-cheat update (Match Infection Rate) |
Note: Respawn’s own “Match Infection Rate” metric, published in its anti-cheat updates, shows ranked play far more contested by cheaters than unranked, and Diamond and Master-tier matches roughly twice as likely to include a banned player as the game-wide average.
6. Cross-Play, Platforms, and Monetization
Apex Legends has quietly become one of the more platform-agnostic shooters on the market, a shift that took years to complete after its 2019 launch as a PC-and-console-only title. EA made cross-progression mandatory for every Apex Legends player starting October 26, 2023, syncing account level, cosmetics, and Battle Pass progress across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. Monetization still runs on the same free-to-play skeleton the game launched with: a seasonal Battle Pass plus direct cosmetic purchases through Apex Packs, refreshed on each new season and mid-season split.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-progression status | Mandatory for all players since Oct 26, 2023 | Electronic Arts, Cross Progression announcement |
| Platforms covered by cross-progression | PC (EA app, Steam, Epic Games Store), PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Series X/S, Switch | Electronic Arts, Cross Progression announcement |
| Core monetization model | Free-to-play; seasonal Battle Pass plus direct cosmetic purchases | Electronic Arts, Battle Pass page |
| Current content season | Season 29, “Overclocked” (launched May 1, 2026) | Electronic Arts, Apex Legends news |
| Franchise anniversary marked in 2026 | 7 years (launched Feb 4, 2019) | Electronic Arts, Apex Legends news |
| Mid-season update cadence | One mid-season patch per split (e.g., June 22, 2026) | Electronic Arts, Apex Legends news |
Note: cross-play matchmaking between platforms is on by default, and console players who disable it individually face much longer queue times, a trade-off EA has openly acknowledged rather than published hard matchmaking figures for.
7. Launch Milestones and the Mobile Spinoff
Not every Apex Legends bet paid off. Apex Legends Mobile launched in May 2022 chasing the same audience that made PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile enormous, but it never found its footing. The mobile spinoff generated an estimated 11.6 million dollars and 21.8 million downloads in its first 30 days, yet EA and Respawn announced its shutdown by February 2023 and completed it by May 1, 2023, less than a year after release. EA cited the difficulty of sustaining a live-service shooter across thousands of device configurations and said the game was not meeting internal quality standards, rather than pointing to any weakness in the core franchise.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Apex Legends Mobile launch | May 2022 | Polygon, Apex Legends Mobile shutdown coverage |
| Mobile revenue, first 30 days | About 11.6 million dollars | Mobilegamer.biz reporting |
| Mobile downloads, first 30 days | 21.8 million | Mobilegamer.biz reporting |
| Mobile downloads within first 2 months | 26 million | Mobilegamer.biz reporting |
| Mobile shutdown announced | February 3, 2023 | Axios, EA’s surprise Apex Legends Mobile shutdown |
| Mobile shutdown completed | By May 1, 2023 | GameSpot, Apex Legends Mobile shutting down in 90 days |
| Time from mobile launch to shutdown | Less than 1 year | Polygon; Axios; GameSpot |
Note: EA has not confirmed a mobile return as of this writing, despite recurring fan speculation. For how Apex Legends’ player base compares with gaming audiences generally, see our gamer demographics statistics.
Summary: Apex Legends by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Apex Legends lifetime net bookings | More than 3.4 billion dollars | Electronic Arts, CEO Andrew Wilson, May 2024 |
| Apex Legends FY26 net bookings growth | Up double digits year over year | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release |
| Apex Legends Q4 FY26 performance | Strongest net bookings quarter on record | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release |
| EA fiscal 2026 total net bookings | 8.026 billion dollars (record, up 9%) | Electronic Arts, Q4 FY26 earnings release |
| Lifetime registered players (most recent official figure) | More than 100 million | Electronic Arts, April 2021 |
| Players in first 30 days (Feb 2019 launch) | 50 million | Electronic Arts, launch disclosure |
| All-time Steam concurrent-player peak | 624,473 (Feb 18, 2023) | SteamDB |
| Steam concurrent-player peak, March 2026 | 287,202 | SteamDB |
| ALGS Year 6 total season prize pool | 7,000,000 dollars | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| ALGS Year 6 Championship prize pool (Sapporo, Jan 2027) | 2,000,000 dollars | ALGS, Year 6 season overview |
| ALGS Year 5 Championship peak viewers | 420,378 | Esports Charts |
| ALGS Year 5 Championship hours watched | 5.97 million | Esports Charts |
| Permanent bans issued since Season 23 | More than 400,000 | Respawn Entertainment |
| Season 28 Split 2 single ban wave | 73,591 accounts (95.4% on PC) | Respawn Entertainment |
| April 24, 2026 ban wave | 28,267 accounts; 6.6 million RP removed | Respawn Entertainment |
| Cross-progression mandatory since | October 26, 2023 | Electronic Arts |
| Current content season | Season 29, “Overclocked” | Electronic Arts |
| Franchise age in 2026 | 7 years | Electronic Arts |
| Apex Legends Mobile lifespan | Less than 1 year (2022-2023) | Axios; Polygon; GameSpot |
Methodology and Sources
Data was gathered directly from Electronic Arts investor relations disclosures, official Apex Legends Global Series and EA/Respawn communications, and named esports and player-tracking outlets, cross-referencing overlapping figures across two or more sources where possible and flagging any figure older than 2024.
- Electronic Arts, Q4 and FY26 Results (May 2026)
- Electronic Arts, Q3 FY26 Results (Feb 2026)
- Electronic Arts, Q4 and FY25 Results (May 2025)
- Dexerto, EA reveals Apex Legends lifetime net bookings (May 2024)
- Apex Legends Global Series, Year 6 season overview (2026)
- Esports Radar, ALGS Year 6 prize pool and format details (2026)
- Liquipedia, Apex Legends Global Series 2026 Championship
- Esports Charts, ALGS 2026 Championship tournament data (Jan 2026)
- Esports Charts, ALGS 2026 Championship kickoff viewership (Jan 2026)
- Electronic Arts/Respawn, anti-cheat update (Match Infection Rate) (2026)
- Electronic Arts/Respawn, anti-cheat update (hardware bans) (2026)
- Gameriv, Season 28 Split 2 ban wave report (Apr 2026)
- Gameriv, April 24, 2026 ban wave report (Apr 2026)
- Electronic Arts, Cross Progression announcement (Oct 2023)
- Electronic Arts, Battle Pass page
- SteamDB, Apex Legends Steam Charts
- Axios, EA’s surprise Apex Legends Mobile shutdown (Feb 2023)
- Polygon, EA gives up on Apex Legends and Battlefield mobile games (Feb 2023)
- GameSpot, Apex Legends Mobile shutting down for good in 90 days (Feb 2023)
- Additional figures: Mobilegamer.biz first-month mobile revenue and download estimates, as cross-referenced by industry roundups.
Data watch: Electronic Arts reports quarterly earnings on its usual fiscal calendar, with Q1 FY27 results expected in early August 2026; the Apex Legends Global Series publishes updated viewership recaps after each LAN event via Esports Charts; and Respawn Entertainment posts anti-cheat ban-wave updates roughly every 4 to 6 weeks via its official channels.
Last updated: July 21, 2026. We update this page quarterly as new data is published.