Apex Legends players have always dreamed of eliminating the entire lobby, destroying the competition as if they were bots. Well, one cheater has finally granted that wish, but the repercussions have been anything but glamorous for the entire community.
A new bot problem started circulating Apex servers early on Wednesday, Feb. 7, when multiple social media posts showed footage of recent ranked lobbies which have been artificially filled with hostile enemy squads full of bots. This, of course, began causing problems at all ranks. These bots are mysteriously spawned in after a squad launches off the drop ship, landing on top of one player and endlessly chases them with the sole intention of eliminating the chosen squad using only their fists and massively inflated numbers.
Bot lobbies have unfortunately been a consistent problem in the past for Apex, where entire bot squads would stay in the drop ship, falling off the map or dying to the ring and allowing exploiters in the same lobby to boost accounts from Rookie to Masters, but no bots have ever directly targeted players or engaged them in combat before.
ImperialHal brought the most attention to the problem by posting clips of his latest Twitch stream experience on Feb. 8. In the shared clips, Hal can be seen attempting to fight off the never-ending army; an issue that forced him to eventually end his streams early due to consistently being placed in lobbies with cheaters. Additional evidence came from other Master ranked players and even FURIA’s ALGS team, who voiced their discontent and similar experiences when loading into similar lobbies and being blindsided by cheaters’ bots.
The affected Apex players quickly pointed out how the exploit originated from a singular source, as all of the bots shared the same name with the cheater. The cheater in question appears to use the time to grab weapons and loot before using the trail of mindless bots to locate and eventually eliminate the targeted squad with aimbot cheats. This even further devalues the ranked experience, with many suggesting it has turned ranked into a waste of time in recent days.
Even worse, players fortunate enough to break away from the initial onslaught are reporting eliminating these bots net no RP due to their artificially spawned nature. Even at the highest ranks of Master and Apex Predator, getting a kill would still earn one RP, but none of the bot kills featured in the recently exploited lobbies rewarded any, further adding to community frustration.
The Apex streamers affected have put in multiple reports and reached out to Conor Ford, head of security at Respawn. He most recently helped roll out the Jan. 31 controller config changes and punished any accounts who took advantage of the third-party feature after numerous petitions for the exploit to be addressed.
With Apex’s 20th season dropping on Feb. 13, fans are left hoping this latest bot issue can be resolved soon, otherwise the race to Predator will be anything but close.
