Respawn Entertainment dropped the ban hammer of two of the top rated players in Apex Legends, after a handful of professional players complained to the security team.
Despite a constant and endless effort to eliminate cheaters in the Apex, they are still commonplace even at the highest levels.
There are some names that the community has been watching for some time, and it looks like they’ve finally been scrapped, thanks again to Respawn security leader Conor Ford, also known as Hideouts.
These players were in the top 10 in the global ranking of Ranked mode in Apex Legends, clearly ruining the experience of other legitimate players.
Top Apex Predators Banned
On January 22, Posted hiding places a simple but effective message: his faithful hammer of prohibition x2.
🔨 x 2
– Conor Ford / Hideouts (@RSPN_Hideouts) January 23, 2021
It didn’t take long for the community to identify one of the culprits as ‘invulnerable FPS’ – who had played under other pseudonyms in previous seasons of the ranking.
TSM pro and Halo legend Eric ‘Snip3down’ Wrona was happy to see the player they suspected of cheating finally getting his well-deserved punishment.
LOL is over @invulnerableFPS has been banned AGAIN! Absolutely pathetic man, who was defending these guys who were caught before will be in deadly silence now I’m sure, now and the accomplices ?? Justice was done!
– TSM Snip3down (@ Snip3down) January 22, 2021
With the ban, these players are removed from the leaderboards, allowing legitimate players to obtain their proper ranking.
Apex Tracker, a website that tracks the highest ranked players through an API, confirmed the bans with a Respawn representative, updating the ranking accordingly.
We are aware of the prohibitions that have just been applied to some top players.
A Respawn representative also confirmed directly with us (thanks)
We are not in the business of naming names, unless it is a positive feud; just let us know that we are aware of the ‘problem’, say.
<3 x pic.twitter.com/9ZDsHQnPar
– Apex Legends Tracker (@Apex_Tracker) January 23, 2021
While these bans are welcome and a positive step, cheating is a problem that remains widespread at all levels of Apex Legends.
Hideouts is widely praised in the community for his work against hackers, but he is only an individual, and players feel that a more effective anti-cheat is needed at a system level.
With that said, Apex is still doing better than its rival Battle Royale, Warzone, which appears to have absolutely no effective anti-cheat system – a problem that has affected tournaments with a lot of money.