Over 16,000 players have already been banned in Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends, the free-to-play battle royale shooter that was released three weeks ago today.
Respawn is taking a proactive and hands-on approach and is handing out bans proclaiming that cheaters “suck,” in a post on the Apex subreddit on Feb. 16. The developers of the popular battle royale asked members of the community to “try and capture” evidence, even if they “don’t get proof,” and promised to investigate suspicious accounts.
Respawn also announced it’s going to be updating the community more often, and will provide a live developer stream around the launch of the first season of Apex, predicted to kick off on Mar. 4.
In comparison, Epic Games, the developers of Fortnite, were much less open with their banning figures in the game’s opening month. They issued a vague figure in October 2017, claiming that “thousands” had been banned. Both games grew at a fast pace, but it seems that Respawn has been more transparent when concerning cheaters.
Cheating is an ongoing issue in PC games, and particularly for those in the FPS genre. It has become increasingly easier to get access to aimbots and wallhacks, and they act as a tool that can easily disrupt a game, and make it a much less engaging and competitive environment.
Wallhacking is a huge problem in battle royale games. More than 13 million accounts have been banned in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, according to figures provided by Bluehole, on Korean PUBG website Cafe Naver.
It’s a promising start from Respawn, and its approach to publicly providing banning figures for Apex will surely work as a future deterrent to possible cheaters.
