“Game-breaking” Apex Legends bug stops players from looting deathboxes

The Season 5 update for Apex Legends introduced a bug that players are referring to as “game-breaking” since it prevents them from looting deathboxes and items captured by Loba’s ultimate ability.

Players across consoles are reportedly unable to pick up items from stashes while using the ‘Ninja’ layout of their controller’s button scheme. It’s unknown if a similar issue is affecting PC users with controllers, but Xbox One and PlayStation 4 players are experiencing the problem.

After a skirmish, swiftly sifting through deathboxes to restock on munitions or upgrade your arsenal is essential for staying one step ahead in a fight. But that process gets deterred when the game stops you from picking up items in the first place.

Instead, players like Reddit user ‘KillerIcyGH’ are inadvertently pinging the item that they want instead of taking out of the drop down menu for the stashes.

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The same can be said for Loba’s ‘Black Market Boutique’ ultimate that keeps the High Society Thief from rightfully claiming what her ability gathered.

“For people who don’t know,” user ‘peishaf’ said. “Since Season 5 there is a bug through which one can no longer loot deathboxes, you can only ping loot.”

There’s been numerous threads on the topic posted in the Apex Legends subreddit as more players encounter the problem.

While the Respawn developers would be quick to resolve this issue, in the meantime, crafty users have been looking for temporary workarounds until the problem is patched.

“The workaround,” user ‘zoganshero’ explained. “For now, you can actually customize your button layout, and by using the down button on the dpad for pings, you can default to using a to pick up items.”

Now this might pose a problem for Mirage players, but until Respawn come through with a proper fix, you’ll have to pick your poison on which button gets remapped.

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At this point in the game’s lifecycle there will be people who have their button layout refined and perfected. But players who regularly opt into the Ninja layout will have to contend with the fix.

Looting from fallen opponents is a fundamental feature in any battle royale, so the workaround will just have to hold over until the Apex Legends devs can mend the issue.