How Respawn Created Catalyst and Championed Inclusivity in Apex Legends

“I don’t know if I’ve ever played a character that I’ve connected with more,” enthuses Meli Grant, voice actress for Apex Legend’s Catalyst, the game’s first trans character. It’s clear from the huge smile on her face that she loves playing the controller Legend, who was first introduced back in November 2022. “There are so many fun little parallels that we’ve discovered as we were recording the character, just crossover between the Venn diagram of Catalyst’s sense of humor and her sort of wry, sort of snarky energy and things that I can relate to in my life.”

Catalyst has since become a hugely popular character in Apex and also an LGBTQ+ icon, joining an already-diverse roster list in the game – something that’s incredibly important to the development team at Respawn. “One of the things we strive for is to have a really diverse cast,” explains Ashley Reed, Narrative Lead on Apex. “We’re always looking at, “What are the opportunities we have? What are things we want to do? What are different experiences and identities we want to add to the cast?” We’ve been interested in creating a trans woman character for a while, and we were seeing an opportunity to do just that with this character. So we thought very early on, we’re like, “Hey, let’s do this. Let’s go for it. Now is the moment.

“Something that we on the Apex team really care about is creating this sense that this game takes place in the future of our world, and we want to represent the diversity of the world we see today and our hopes for what that could look like in the future,” says Reed. “And as creatives, it’s just more interesting to show characters with a lot of different experiences and identities and lives unique among the entire cast.”

“Whether we like it or not, we still live in this world where the media we consume and the stories that we engage with aren’t always reflective of the actual world that we live in and the people that are in that world,” continues Grant. “And oftentimes, there are people who still, somehow in the current year, think that the inclusion of more women in our stories, more people of color in our stories, more trans and non-binary folks, is somehow a political statement versus just creating stories that actually look like the real world. I think that representation is really important. People need a model to look to, examples of what they can do with their lives and what they can aspire to. So much of our culture engages with storytelling, whether it’s live action televisions, or movies, or anime, or comic books. And it’s so important to see examples of people who are like us to get a sense of what the world could be for us.”

Unsurprisingly, Catalyst wasn’t the work of one person but rather the culmination of many, and Reed continues: “The way we develop characters on Apex is we’ll usually start with the artists, the writers, and the designers getting together and discussing, “Okay, what do we want to do? What kits are we working with? What personalities match those kits?” Things like that. And Catalyst came about the same way.”

“It was an incredibly collaborative process”, adds Meli Grant. “So as we were going session by session, we were recording maybe twice a week, four hours a day for multiple months, it really started to feel like we were sort of creating this together. As someone who got my start in anime where we’re often recreating a production in English, this is maybe not the first, but one of the very first and certainly the biggest project I’ve worked on where I’ve been a part of discovering and creating a character from the ground up. And that was incredibly exciting.”

We still live in this world where the media we consume and the stories that we engage with aren’t always reflective of the actual world that we live in

The evolution of Catalyst was a fluid one and although the developers had a clear idea of what they wanted them to be, they were open to suggestions. “I had a very different idea of what I thought they were looking to create with Catalyst”, admits Grant. “The original audition sides had multiple examples of character prototypes, and every single one of them was English, had an English accent. So I remember writing to my agent and saying, “Are they looking for [someone] like a Maleficent, or some kind of English character?” And the agent wrote back saying, “Oh, yeah, I spoke to the casting director, they said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Do whatever you’re comfortable with.’” (Catalyst doesn’t have an English accent in the game).

“So I did the smart thing and immediately overthought that – the gears turning in my head going, “Well, they say that because it’s already a very small talent pool – there aren’t a lot of professionally working trans women so they’re probably going to say that because they don’t want to shrink the talent pool.”

That wasn’t the case and a few weeks later, Grant got a callback. “Whether it happened organically or whether they were continuing to discover the character in the weeks between my audition and the callback, the director Phil steered me right into the center of my comfort zone. And I left that callback so confident because I hadn’t expected that walking in. And the next thing I know, I’m performing a character that kind of is just instinctual. It was exciting, but it was also terrifying, because the ones that you feel like you have the biggest shot of nailing are usually the ones you don’t get. So I’m like, “That felt great. Oh no, I’m doomed!”

As for the character design, Respawn started out with a number of options which they tweaked as they got to know the character better. The design team worked alongside the narrative team and her personality and story helped shape the look of Catalyst. 3D character artist Mirim Lee explains the process in more detail: “I asked Ashley, “Can I get more information about her [Catalyst]?” And then she sent me all the story and background, her personality, her lines, and then also, an amazing playlist – the music playlist she’s imagining for her theme. It was really amazing and a very smooth process.

The idea for the playlist actually came from concept artist Brett Marting, who worked with Reed during the development process, as she explains: “We would ask ‘What music evokes her?’ And as I was describing Catalyst, he came up with some of his own ideas, which are still in my Spotify – they’re really good.”

“The original idea for the character as a techno witch was suggested by a designer on the team, a former designer who is a trans woman, so it was something we really attached to”, says Reed. “We really liked the idea of the techno witch concept, so we had trans developers represented very early on in the process. But then we also wanted to have consultation as we started working on things and getting more into her lines, because no one group is a monolith – different people are going to have different opinions on things. So we wanted to make sure we were keeping an eye out for not misrepresenting anything.”

The most meaningful line for me was the one they announced [Catalyst] with, which was, ‘Everyone deserves a chance to rise’. I connected with that a lot

Respawn therefore worked with GLAAD, a non-profit organization focused on LGBTQ advocacy and cultural change, to help develop Catalyst. “GLAAD was really essential when we got to the point where we said, “Okay, Catalyst is really well-developed at this point, we’re comfortable with who she is as a person and her backstory, her personality – let’s get this checked out to see if we’re get falling in any pitfalls,” says Reed. “They were really helpful with that and also educating the team on trans representation in media, so we could get a better view of not just what we were working on, but the landscape that we were walking into. They were really helpful going over the content we created, both the dialogue and Brett and Mirim’s work on the art side. It was a really good back and forth relationship with them, them giving us information but also checking on what we were working on as we were developing.”

One of the main ways Catalyst’s personality shines through it through her dialogue, which can sometimes be mean, but also meaningful. “I think the most meaningful line for me was the line that they announced me with, which was, ‘Everyone deserves a chance to rise’,” admits Grant. “I connected with that a lot, as somebody who had a lot of twists and turns, and trying to build a career and not always feeling like people have given me the shots I felt literally everyone around me getting. People expressing to my face their confusion about what to do with someone with my voice and where I fit into the work that I was doing in the first couple of years of my career… So that was very powerful to be a part of a story this big and this meaningful. And especially to get announced with, “Everyone deserves a chance to rise,” it felt like it was speaking directly to me.”

Grant continues: “My community, which is very predominantly LGBTQ, loves all of the fun little references to her transness and her queerness. So the lines like, “I am the grim trans witch your parents warned you about,” but also, things like, “If you can’t produce your own liquid metal, store bought is fine. I’m here for all the witches.” Those are usually the lines that at least the community that I’ve built on Twitter and on Twitch adore.”

For a long time my advocacy was making sure that we saw characters cast appropriately so that we had people from marginalized groups given the opportunity to tell their own stories

Catalyst has already had a huge impact on Apex Legends then, and is a favorite within the community. And while the inclusion of a trans character in a mainstream game is a big step forward, there’s still more to be done. “For a long time my advocacy was making sure that we saw characters cast appropriately so that we had people from marginalized groups given the opportunity to tell their own stories and to be a part of that process, to add that much needed authenticity to the characters that we’re creating in the stories that we tell,” says Grant. “But also, to give people from marginalized groups the opportunity to profit and benefit from the telling of their stories, which hasn’t traditionally been afforded to queer folks or actors of color in the past.

“The next step of that is to focus on the characters themselves, and also making sure that we’re highlighting the creators behind them and creating opportunities for people as artists, as developers, as writers, as actors like myself, and showcasing people from marginalized groups that represent that character thriving and being a part of the process, so that we can be that blueprint for everyone that comes after us.

“I hope in some small way that the work that I’m doing now as Catalyst, as well as everything else that I have done before and do in the future, can be a jumping off point for someone to come after me and do it way better.”