Developer Respawn Entertainment continues to dedicate a serious amount of time and effort to combat cheating in its battle royale game, Apex Legends. Like other free to play online shooters, the threat of hackers and cheaters ruining a game is always present, no matter how well developers try to deter them. Apex Legends was recently mentioned in study identifying which games have the most hackers, but it seems Respawn is trying hard to distance Apex Legends from a bad reputation.
Apex Legends is currently in Season 8, and the developers have plenty to focus on besides cheaters. Apex Legends will be releasing for Nintendo Switch on March 9, and right now developers are having difficulties balancing Caustic, a hero with a powerful ultimate that severely limits opposing players' options as games come down to the wire. But despite these other areas of focus, Respawn has once again issued a ban wave targeting tons of Apex Legends cheaters.
Conor Ford is the Head of Security for Respawn and deals firsthand with complaints about cheating in Apex Legends. In a tweet yesterday, Ford stated that over 600 players had been manually banned over the course of the day. In an Apex Legends ban wave earlier this month that banned a little over 500 players, Ford outlined the cheating method several PS4 players used. There was no description of the specific methods in this wave, but aimbots and wallhacks are some of the most common cheating methods.
A majority of the cheating seems to be occurring on servers in Japan, and Ford also took time on Twitter yesterday to specifically address Japanese players. He also stated that there are "plans in place" for improving anti-cheat measures in Apex Legends and that they "will be announced relatively soon." Players banned from Season 8 are only banned for the current season, and will have the chance to play Apex Legends again once Season 9 rolls around.
Although some Twitter users were quick to ask why Ford seems to be the only person working on banning cheaters, there are also automated systems that work to identify cheaters in games. Respawn likely makes use of these automated measures as well as dedicating other team members to support Ford in his mission to rid Apex Legends of cheaters.
Respawn has regularly responded to fan criticism in the past and seems actively involved in making sure Apex Legends is a fun battle royale experience. Respawn has indicated it has seen complaints about the golden gun optics from professional and casual players alike, so there could be a fix coming in the future. For now, Apex Legends players can at least know there are 652 less cheaters out there to ruin games for everyone.
Apex Legends is currently available for PC, Xbox One and PS4, and is coming to Switch on March 9, 2021.