When you meet Pathfinder, Apex Legends’ friendly neighborhood zipline-firing robot, the natural thought is “I wonder if this guy knows Chappie.”
Chappie, of course, is the thinking, feeling robot star of the movie of the same name, from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp. Fans have been asking him about putting Chappie into Apex Legends, and the director says he like the idea – and so does Respawn CEO Vince Zampella.
On Twitter, a fan asked Blomkamp if there was “any word” on Chappie joining Apex Legends, and included a .gif from the movie, showing Chappie reaching out to pet a friendly dog. Blomkamp retweeted the question, saying “Lotta people asking me this. I am down yes.”
About fifteen minutes later, Zampella responded. “I am also down,” he said. Partnership… confirmed?
It’s not a crazy idea at all. First off, Chappie’s a natural fit given the Titanfall universe’s MRVN units – Pathfinder is one of these, and you can spot them milling around in Titanfall 2’s campaign. So it’s easy to imagine an epic or legendary Chappie skin for Pathfinder, or perhaps an entirely new character with more Chappie-style abilities, such as a high jump. In the film, he’s a scout unit, and so he’d likely fill a similar role on a squad as Pathfinder does already.
Second, it wouldn’t be Blomkamp’s first partnership with EA – he’s made a live-action trailer based on Anthem called Conviction, set decades before the story in the game. And it was Blomkamp’s tweet after watching the Anthem E3 trailer that led to the creation of Conviction.
While it would certainly be cool to see Chappie appear in Apex Legends, it’ll depend a lot on how flexible Respawn decides to be with Titanfall’s fiction. What are the implications of a crossover appearance? Are the MRVNs an offshoot of Earth’s experiment with robotic police officers? And does Hugh Jackman have a weird mullet in this world?
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These questions and others – such as how to manage IP rights and other boring legal stuff like that – would have to be answered if we’re going to see the loveable Chappie in Apex Legends. But the people in charge seem to like the idea, so there’s plenty of room to hope.