Every so often, the Apex Legends community circles back to the same idea that just vault some guns, add fresh ones, and let the weapon pool rotate like seasonal content. It sounds clean on paper. However, this time, a Respawn lead designer actually stepped into the thread to explain why the studio keeps landing on a different answer.
A Respawn Designer Responds to the “Vault Old Weapons” Pitch
The conversation kicked off on the Apex Legends subreddit when a player argued the current weapon pool is starting to feel stale and suggested Respawn vault guns, release new ones, and rotate the older weapons out the way seasonal items come and go. It’s a familiar request, and it usually gets a lot of upvotes because the loadout screen genuinely has looked similar for a while now.
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What made this one stand out is that a Respawn lead designer posting under the handle RSPN_Eric replied directly, and the answer was more thoughtful than a simple no.
Respawn Has Considered Vaulting Weapons Before
The designer confirmed this isn’t a new idea inside the studio. Respawn has looked at vaulting weapons in the past, and he pointed out the game already has a softer version of it baked in. He called the Replicator weapons a form of “light vaulting,” since pulling a gun off the floor and locking it behind crafting effectively takes it out of the standard loot pool for a while. The Care Package program does something similar, moving strong guns into supply drops so they’re powerful but rare rather than something you grab off the ground every fight.
So the concept of shrinking or shuffling access to certain weapons is something Respawn has genuinely experimented with, just not in the full remove-it-from-the-game sense a lot of players are picturing.
Respawn Thinks Big Nerfs Do Most of the Same Work
According to the designer, fully removing a weapon doesn’t move the meta all that much more than a heavy nerf already can. If a gun is dominating, Respawn can hit it hard enough that people stop reaching for it, which lands in roughly the same place as vaulting it, only without deleting a weapon players might still enjoy.
When people say they want a gun vaulted, what they usually want is for it to stop warping every gunfight. A big nerf can accomplish that outcome while keeping the weapon around for the players who still like using it.
Variety Matters in a Battle Royale, Even for Off-Meta Guns
The same designer also leaned on a bigger-picture point about what makes a battle royale feel good to play. He argued that having access to a wide range of weapons matters, including the ones that have fallen out of favor. Not every drop is going to hand you the current best gun, and part of the Apex experience is making a subpar loadout work until you upgrade. Trimming the pool down to only the strong picks would quietly remove some of that scrappy, adapt-to-what-you-find energy that battle royales are built on.
It’s a reminder that a smaller, tighter weapon list can actually make early-game looting feel worse, not better, because your odds of grabbing something you have no interest in go up.
The Meta Will Always Have a Top and a Bottom
Respawn’s stance is that metas are never going to sit perfectly flat. Something will always rise to the top, and something will always sink to the bottom, and that churn is just how a competitive shooter works. The designer said the team will keep refining how long any single weapon gets to stay dominant or stay in the dirt, so no gun overstays its welcome at either extreme.
The line that will stick with people is his closing thought that he’d rather see Apex’s weapon offerings grow than shrink. That’s a fairly clear signal about the direction Respawn wants to take, which is adding more options over time instead of pruning the roster down to a rotating handful.
Reading between the lines, players hoping for a full seasonal vault-and-rotate system probably shouldn’t hold their breath. Respawn’s preference is to keep the weapons in the game and manage balance through tuning, with the Care Package and crafting systems handling the softer version of rotation when a gun needs a breather from floor loot.
Whether that satisfies the crowd asking for fresh energy in the loadout screen is another question. A nerf keeps a weapon technically available, but it doesn’t deliver the novelty of pulling something brand new off the ground.
