Apex Legends launched another wave of banning to fight hackers and cheaters who ruined matches in season 8. Respawn Entertainment developers have also pledged to step up anti-cheat efforts across the board, but particularly in some regions.
Just like any other competitive online shooting game, hackers always find a way to ruin things for honest players in Apex Legends.
In recent months, players on Asian servers have specifically reported an increase in the number of hackers, even warning some of the best players to avoid the ranked game altogether until it is resolved.
Respawn security chief Conor Ford confirmed another wave of prohibition on February 23, clearing more than 600 cheaters from the servers.
Respawn is targeting hackers now more than ever at Apex Legends.
Apex ban wave catches cheaters
Ford, better known as Hideouts on social media, confirmed a wave of manual banning 652 cheaters on February 23.
652 cheaters banned manually / individually today. I’m tired. I love you all 🔨 ♥ ️
– Conor Ford / Hideouts (@RSPN_Hideouts) February 24, 2021
This follows its previous ban wave of 507 PS4 players on February 10, which was using an RP flaw to earn free ranking points. The ban for these users will only last until season 9, when they will be able to play again.
For the PS4 507 that was banned for exploiting a PR flaw in classified and farm-free PR, maybe we’ll see some of you in season 9. Until then, enjoy your time outside of Apex and do something really productive instead of cheating, lol ♥ ️🔨
– Conor Ford / Hideouts (@RSPN_Hideouts) February 10, 2021
Cheaters ruining the Apex in Japan
Against popular belief, Hideouts is not the only person who controls the banning of players in Apex Legends. There are also automated systems to detect hackers.
Unfortunately, it seems that hordes of cheats have been able to bypass these protections on servers in Asia, especially.
Hideouts also answered those questions, saying it will focus on cleaning servers specifically in the Japanese region. Japan is the second largest market for Apex Legends.
こ ん に ち は
To all my friends and legends in Japan, I hear you and I am just as tired of the cheaters on your servers as you are. I’m dedicating a lot of my time this week to focus specifically on cleaning your servers. Send everything my way, let’s fight together ♥ ️🔨– Conor Ford / Hideouts (@RSPN_Hideouts) February 16, 2021
In a follow-up tweet, the developer also confirmed that there are “plans in progress, which will be announced shortly, to help resolve this issue”.
We are awaiting the announcement of these plans, but it certainly looks like the Respawns have things in preparation to help further crack down on cheaters.