A Respawn Entertainment developer has confirmed that the name of the Inauguration Ship Season 8 teaser will be changed with the next Apex Legends update during the week of January 17 to avoid confusion surrounding the upcoming presidential inauguration of the United States.
With season 8 of Apex Legends fast approaching, the forerunners for it have started popping up in the game, one of the most interesting of which is the Inauguration Ship which is floating above the map.
However, the name has nothing to do with the upcoming US presidential inauguration that will take place on Wednesday, January 20, 2021. To avoid confusion with the big event, the developers decided to change its name to the Ceremony Ship.
Hmm, what is it then? pic.twitter.com/D8ijSC7a6w
– Apex Legends News (@TitanfallBlog) 15 January 2021
According to Ryan Rigney, director of communications at Respawn Entertainment, the decision was made to prevent people from thinking that the developers were ‘commenting on current events’, and given how close we are to the actual inauguration, it makes sense .
Rigney added that they initially did not intend to cause confusion and that the name ‘Inauguration Ship’ was something they picked out a while ago and that it coincidentally fits with current events.
“Better safe than sorry,” he tweeted.
Small note for the latest Apex patch, next week we will change the name of the ‘inauguration ship’ to the Ceremony Ship.
We did not want people to mistakenly assume that we were commenting on current events – it’s just a name we’ve been choosing for a while. Better safe than sorry!
– Ryan K. Rigney (@RKRigney) 16 January 2021
Rigney confirmed that the change would not be too significant, stating that the only thing he noticed was a text file that appeared during the ping of the ship in the game. The name change of course means that any new pieces in Apex will also refer to the ship with the appropriate title.
Right now, the Ceremony Ship is one of the most notable tips for season 8 to appear in the game, aside from the new abilities found, which are part of the upcoming Legend called Fuse.
It will be interesting to see if anything else comes out of the ship before the new season starts in early February.