The Apex Legends Global Series features the best teams fighting in each region, and every game counts towards getting to playoffs and the opportunity to claim one of the limited spots at the offline LAN events. However, the past split has been plagued with multiple technical issues that have affected the competitive experience for pros and viewers alike.
On match day four for APAC-N, two of the six games on Storm Point featured extremely laggy Apex servers that slowed down each game to a crawl, with the issues clearly shown on the main broadcast.
Despite players and coaches informing spectators and admins about the server conditions, both games were still played to completion with no lobby remake.
Many fans, pros, and coaches immediately criticized the unfair conditions, highlighting the lack of attention Respawn gives to the region, in comparison to the other ALGS international leagues.
Fun123’s Han “dr1p” Sang-jun spoke out after his team finished last in game three on April 23, questioning why the ALGS didn’t restart the Apex match despite the overwhelming evidence of the laggy servers.
Server issues aren’t new to Apex and have actually already affected many competitive regions in the ongoing 2023 season. NA and EMEA had lobby crashes mid-game, forcing admins to restart the Apex matches completely, nullifying the in-progress results. These problems had multiple pros calling to attention the lack of competitive integrity within the scene, as each match could decide a team’s playoff chances.
On April 7, 2023, the PlayApex Twitter account announced a week’s delay for all affected regions to fix the server instabilities brought by recent patches. However, while NA and EMEA proceeded smoothly, APAC-N’s matches continued to suffer problems—a dire issue for the region considering it’s just one week until playoffs.
APAC-N’s regular season runs for five weeks, with 12 games featured each match day. In comparison, NA and EMEA play over nine weeks, but only six games each day.
The current server issues compromise the entire region of APAC-N, and heavily influences the current race for regional finals, which only features the top 20 teams.
The current standings after day four feature previous LAN teams, such as GHS Professional, within one circuit point of making the regional finals, making the final match day all the more important to proceed without bugs.
Assiikun, coach for Riddle, spoke up about the recent server issues, and how the ALGS administrator present was unable to stop the matches. All teams were forced to play out matches in these unstable conditions, which stood in very stark contrast to NA and EMEA, which received full lobby remakes right after server crashes.
Despite the results, Respawn has acknowledged the problems and is actively working towards solutions to the problems. Samy Duc, technical director for Apex, responded to Riddle’s coach, who announced a fix to the past week’s server problems and inspired new hopes for the region’s future competitive events.
The APAC-N ALGS returns for the final day of the split on April 29, 2023, at 10pm CT. After the games, the top 20 teams will fight in the regional finals on May 6, crowning a winner and deciding the eight teams heading to the Split Two LAN playoffs.
Fans can watch the broadcast on Esports_RAGE’s Twitch and Youtube channels.
