Despite previous efforts by Respawn Entertainment to buff Crypto, the season 3 character remains at the bottom of Apex Legends' pick rates. Many absolutely refuse to play the character, as there are other recon characters who can perform scans, but better. Bloodhound and Seer are going to be picked over Crypto just about any day of the week, save for perhaps by Crypto mains.
The thing is, Crypto is not inherently a bad character. He could use a few more Apex Legends buffs, such as reducing the cooldown of his drone once it is destroyed, but Crypto mains are able to effectively use his abilities to rotate, to learn tons of information on the enemy, to watch their back, and more. While Crypto could use an actual passive too, it's not so much his kit that holds him back as how his kit works so uniquely in Apex Legends. Crypto is by far the hardest-to-learn character in the popular battle royale game.
Apex Legends: Crypto is a Good, But Hard-to-Learn, Character
A good Crypto main, whether just for fun, competitive, or professionally, is able to work out stronger rotations for his team, gather unique high-level and long-lasting information on enemy teams, and even be effective in combat. A good Crypto main can bust out the drone's ultimate in the midst of combat, to completely demolish a holding team, or operate as a distraction. The problem is that being able to do all these effectively, in the sheer variety of combat situations available in Apex Legends, takes more time to learn than many would consider investing. Crypto's skill floor, the lowest skill level needed to make use of the character, is incredibly high and is complex compared to characters like Octane, Lifeline, or even newer characters like Vantage, Newcastle, and so on.
Indeed, to make it worse, anyone who can is going to effectively counter Crypto as quick as they can. Misusing Crypto's drone can come across as shouting the strategy to the opposing team, and they'll quickly focus fire on Crypto's drones, upon which all his abilities rely. This makes taking the time to learn him even harder because even an unskilled Crypto's drone is going to take priority ahead of a fight.
At this point, increasing Crypto's popularity seems unlikely to happen without major reworks, and said reworks could result in his Apex Legends meta position shifting drastically. It's no doubt a hard line to walk to keep Crypto's strengths at the front and center without "dumbing" down the character. It remains to be seen if something ever happens or if Crypto will always be a strong, but seldom-picked, character.
Apex Legends is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.