Starting off as a Titanfall spin-off, Apex Legends is still ongoing while starving fans await some future for the studio’s mech-based multiplayer game. While Apex Legends has continued to move further and further away from the singularly focused world of Titanfall, the studio still has “respect” for what came before.

Simply put, the vast majority of the crew that made Titanfall is no longer at Respawn. Built out of ex-Infinity Ward developers, the studio has since moved on. Titanfall game designer Steve Fukada left last year, co-founder Chad Grenier departed the studio to form Highguard studio Wildlight Entertainment, co-founder Vince Zampella sadly passed last year, and other have left or suffered from layoffs.

Speaking to PCGamesN, narrative lead Ashley Reed—who worked on the debut release of Apex Legends—explained that the studio has changed substantially over the years, but there’s still a lot of “respect” for the foundations that formed the studio in the first place.

“[Respawn] started out pretty much as Infinity Ward folks,” they said, “and even up to Apex it was very heavily Infinity Ward folks. And in the last few years that’s changed, the whole landscape of the dev team has changed.”

Reed explained that it’s no longer about simply replicating the past, but moving forward while speaking “to the legacy” of what Respawn Entertainment means. “Because we very much respect the original folks that were at Respawn – we’re pretty much their protégés,” they said. “They brought us up. So how do we carry forward that legacy but also make something that’s our own? Apex has transformed through the people who have worked on it and the people who we’re making it for.”

While the narrative may sound negative, there are still original Respawn devs at the studio, and this is largely the way in which every development studio works. While DOOM developer Id Software has a few remnants of the studio’s earlier team, 99.9% of workers never worked on the original DOOM or Quake trilogies, but they still make games that speak to the core identify of the studio.

As for Respawn, the studio is still focused on the “movement shooter” aspect of its games, creating rapid, slick gunplay that feels like nothing else. While many of us are still waiting for another Titanfall—made by Respawn or literally anyone at this point—it simply can’t be made by the team that originally brought the mind-blowing shooter to life.