The Apex Legends Global Series is supposed to be the pinnacle of Apex. The best players and teams in the world duke it out in online competitions with the hopes of qualifying for LAN events, where the cream of the crop battle it out for prize pools worth millions of dollars.
Unfortunately, the ALGS Pro League matches over the last week have more closely resembled the average ranked Apex match thanks to bugs that have littered the game since the beginning of season 16 and multiple server crashes that have caused many pros to call the series’ competitive integrity into question.
First plaguing a North American matchday last weekend, another high-profile server crash popped up in the EMEA region today, ending both matches early and forcing them to be replayed. In both instances, several teams had already been eliminated from the game, and teams had already managed to rotate to the area where the game would inevitably finish if it were allowed to continue. But with no way of knowing exactly how the match would play out, ALGS organizers were left with little choice but to nullify those early kills for the surviving teams—and give a few squads a second chance in an entirely new game.
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Server issues are common enough for Apex players. The presence of such severe crashes happening this frequently is a danger to the regional Pro League’s competitive integrity, however. And the pros aren’t happy about it.
The technical issues don’t stop there, either. The game has also suffered since the start of season 16 from serious audio glitches with serious gameplay implications. It’s now common to get shot at by enemy weapons without hearing the gunfire or seeing any tracers from bullets, making it impossible to tell where shots are coming from. Certain weapons, like the new Nemesis AR, seem to have exacerbated this issue, and ultimates like Bangalore’s Creeping Barrage will often get in on the act and not make any sound either.
With the game performing far below its own standards, many pros have publicly vented their frustrations as they try to battle against each other and the game itself for good placements.
With a third of Split Two in Pro League already completed, it doesn’t seem like there will be easy answers to these issues soon. And if there are no immediate fixes to the issues plaguing the current online ALGS competition, it’s fair to wonder how LAN play could be affected at the Split 2 Playoffs in London this summer.
ALGS action continues tonight in North America, with teams like NRG, 100 Thieves, OpTic Gaming, and XSET all competing starting at 6pm CT. Fans can watch the games live on Twitch and YouTube.
