Apex Legends dev explains next steps to address massive cheating problem

Apex Legends’ director said in an interview that they, just like the players, see the cheating crisis in the Battle Royale title as a major problem.

Apex Legends has always had a vocal portion of its player base complaining about cheaters and hackers, with even some pros bemoaning their constant run-ins with aimbots or wallhackers. The issue came to a head in 2024 thanks to a public security breach during a professional Apex tournament.

In an interview with IGN about the controversial Battle Pass adjustments, Apex Legends Game Director Steven Ferreira said that the dev team also sees the cheating issues and is working towards a solution.

Ferriera explained that players widely criticized Respawn for messing around with the Battle Pass rather than taking on Apex cheaters.

“These are all things that honestly make up the majority of what we think about and work towards day in and day out on Apex,” he said.

“But the reality is that a lot of these things are long-lead time initiatives. They are complex problems for us to address. And they’re not just like, oh, here’s a problem, here’s a band-aid solution. We actually look to implement solutions to this as part of the experience,” Ferriera explained.

The issue with how Respawn is dealing with cheaters, according to the Game Director, stems from how uncommunicative the developer has been about what they are working on.

“We have things that are coming out in the upcoming season and we have things that are a long lead time in our road map that span out multiple seasons. They are all focused exactly on the things that the community’s concerned about, but we never talk about them and we never acknowledge and have a conversation about the things that we’re trying and doing around those topics,” he said.

In the future, Ferriera said players should expect more communication and updates from Respawn about cheaters and other major issues with the game as the start of next season grows closer.

Apex players on Reddit were happy to see the developers acknowledge the cheating epidemic, but are not fully swayed by Ferriera’s promises.

“It’s a start but the community needs to keep the pressure on them to make some changes and improve the game,” one Reddit user said.

Season 22 starts on August 6, 2024, so players should expect to hear more about how Respawn plans to deal with cheaters and hackers sometime before then.