Apex Legends has been doing quite well for itself among its worldwide audience, and Japan is no exception. Japanese players have been enjoying its playable Legends, but a recent series of bans may be changing that if EA and Respawn Entertainment don't make some changes.

Japanese players have been such a big part of the fanbase of Apex Legends that the game's director has hinted that the upcoming Season 9 Legend will be of particular interest to those players. However, those players may not even be able to try out the Legend if they get banned first, which has been unfairly impacting Japanese players and Japanese speakers.

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The problem at hand is that players are reporting being banned for using the word 'nigero' in Japanese. Despite its similar sound to a certain English racist slur, the word is completely unrelated to the slur. 'Nigero' simply means 'to run' in Japanese, which is certainly something that one might find themselves telling a teammate during the heat of battle.

Unfortunately, the game system seems to have recognized the usage of this word as a slur or attack, rather than what it actually is. As a result, several players have revealed that their accounts have been summarily banned from Apex Legends, with no response yet given by EA or Respawn Entertainment regarding the bans. While the current uproar over the problem on social media sites is likely to get the attention of the developer and publisher, and hopefully will result in resolving the issue in the future, for now, players are being left out in the cold.

The likely cause behind this problem is somewhat understandable, albeit still upsetting. Slurs and toxicity in PVP video games are particularly common, to the point that EA and Respawn may not be able to devote the hours of manpower to manually reviewing each and every supposed attack. It could also be impossible to keep up with the speed with which these attacks occur, leaving them little recourse but to rely on an automated system.

As a result, the chat filter is likely automatically set to mark an account as an offender for having said anything similar-sounding to a slur, and these Japanese players have just been caught up by the system. How EA will go about resolving this issue is largely a unknown. With any luck, these players will see their bans reversed in the very near future, but as for what the game can do to keep racist slurs to a minimum without catching up innocent players in the crossfire remains to be seen.

Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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