Respawn confirmed that their audio and visual patch released on April 26 addressed multiple issues, including a fix to one line of code that caused the majority of season 16’s audio problems.
Apex has been under fire for multiple issues that were introduced in season 16, but the prominent audio issues that caused footsteps to not make sounds, grenades not properly exploding, and additional bugs caused the biggest problems for many of Apex’s players at every level of competition.
The dev team released a deep dive on the Apex Legends subreddit today that covered their investigation into the season 16 audio and visual issues that many players, pros, and content creators have been complaining about.
The investigation goes in-depth about addressing player reports, such as “disappearing nades,” missing sound effects, and particles not showing up for players. Respawn continued collecting information until the team could narrow down the issue to one problem.
The dev team identified a single line of code to be the root behind season 16’s audio and visual problems. This code was introduced to Apex with the newest weapon: the Nemesis Burst AR.
The Nemesis’ unique ramp-up trait caused the particle issue when firing, as the particles would disappear when the weapon had no charge. This code was executed on the server every frame for each player with an uncharged Nemesis, even when holstered, causing widespread problems for multiple clients with high FPS values in a single lobby.
Three regions in the ALGS demonstrated the extent of these problems. According to Apex Legends Status, the Nemesis is the most-used gun in all five leagues, picked for its versatility in any situation and burst damage, coming in second place for total damage and kills only behind the R-99. With the majority of teams running the Nemesis, the audio and visual bugs caused compounding issues for all players, especially considering that the issues themselves were compounded by clients running at higher frame rates, as most pro players prefer.
Many pro players and content creators spoke out about the recent issues plaguing Apex, and how Respawn had failed to answer any of the problems on the entire game. With cheaters on the ranked ladder, server crashes in the ALGS, and bugs affecting all matches, many players actively protested the state of the game, calling for boycotts until Respawn delivered on its promises to fix their game.
The dev team listened to the feedback, releasing an official statement on April 26 directly acknowledging the community’s frustration with the game and promising to continue monitoring the situation.
The announcement also included a same-day patch for the biggest issues currently plaguing Apex. Respawn concluded the short announcement by saying “While this won’t resolve all audio and visual concerns raised by the community, we are dedicated to improving awareness on the battlefield.”
With Apex’s season 17 and new legend Ballistic releasing in a week, Respawn’s continued transparency and updates should satisfy the community’s biggest concerns and make for a smoother season transition, despite all the past bugs.
