Apex Legends Has Permanently Banned Cheaters And They’re Not Happy

Apex Legends is no longer the hot new thing in town. After skyrocketing in popularity and picking up an impressive player base soon after release, the game recently had a wobble with the launch of the Season 1 Battle Pass. The justifiably poor reception of its contents seems to have kicked off a minor backlash and an update appearing to wipe player progress and items certainly didn’t help. But there’s one thing that seems to be really pissing everyone off: the amount of cheaters.

Popular streamer Shroud neatly summarized the community’s feelings on this, saying:

“I was like, ‘if you don’t handle cheaters well, no report system will save you.’ …A report system is literally useless, [unless] you figure a way to get rid of them. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, but it’s looking like it’s going to happen.”

“I’m telling you. The cheaters are going to ruin this game. It’s so hard to fight cheaters, you can’t win.”

We know that half a million people have already been banned, with the developer even going so far as to ban hardware associated with the accounts in question as well. But now it seems that Respawn might be taking an ever sterner line on this, with that last update being able to detect cheating software even if you aren’t online. Even more sneakily, the update can detect whether you’ve used cheat software in the past. Traditionally, this sort of thing hasn’t stopped cheaters for long. After all, create a new account and spoof an IP and you’re in the clear right? Well, not any longer.

Here’s a selection of responses:

Ah, sweet gaming schadenfreude. While the people creating cheat software are certainly crafty and will find a way around this given enough time, it seems that for now Respawn has the upper hand. So, if you’ve been suspicious of a dearth of players who seem a little too good, now’s the time to log on and enjoy Apex Legends without someone cheating their way to victory.