Hard times have struck the gaming industry, even with hit games like Apex Legends. The author Heather Woodward worked for over a year on a new character for Apex Legends and introduced the character with enthusiasm. One day later, she was fired and received an email from Electronic Arts, which rated her as objectively funny
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What the developer says: Developer Heather Woodward worked as a writer at Respawn on Apex Legends since April 2022. On Bluesky, she says that she worked on her “baby”, the new heroine Sparrow, a prodigy, for much longer than a year.
On April 29, it finally happened. Sparrow saw the light of the world, or at least the light of the internet:
My firstborn is finally here. I worked for well over a year on this sweet ragazzо. Writing a music video-style trailer was a challenging but rewarding task, and I can hardly believe I get to see my work animated by the incredible team at Sun Creature.
The trailer was well received, getting 561,000 views and almost 17,000 likes. There was just a bit of joking in the comments that the trailer was already known due to a leak:
That was her first reaction: One could tell that the tension lifted off the author. She exuberantly commented on the first reactions on Bluesky with a flock of emojis, thrilled about fan art.
It was evidently a great day in Heather Woodward’s life.
Author gets fired by EA after her first baby was released
This is how she felt the next day: Just one day later, Heather Woodward realized that she was among the 300 people at Respawn who were fired by Electronic Arts after it was suddenly decided at the end of the month that the company would focus on Apex Legends and new projects would be canceled. This made several hundred employees redundant.
Woodward writes that it is quite strange that she got fired just the next day after she had showcased her heroine. But well, such things happen, and her time at Apex Legends was great.
Author receives advertisement email for her own character as she is freshly fired
This topped it all off: The whole thing had an ugly aftermath.
EA sent Heather Woodward an advertisement message: Her character, which she designed for Apex Legends, is now live in the game.
The author says: It is objectively funny to receive an email for her character on the day she got fired. And Woodward must know what she is talking about. Before her time at Apex Legends, she was a comedy writer for Netflix Is A Joke and NBC.
One can only admire how bravely the author deals with this setback. Especially in the current situation with AI and the slump in the economy and gaming, many employees in the gaming industry can no longer laugh and be brave: Developer explains how ruthlessly a gaming studio that survived for 13 years was shut down in 5 minutes
