Respawn bans 770,000 Apex Legends cheaters

The banwave for Apex Legends cheaters continues, and Respawn’s efforts are paying off.

To date, Respawn Entertainment has banned a total of about 770,000 players, its anti-cheat mechanism has caught 4,000 “cheat seller” acccounts (spammers) and it has also blocked over 300,000 account registrations, according to a blog post by Drew McCoy, executive producer at Respawn.

Last week, Respawn announced that game updates, such as new modes, as well as a Season 2 battle pass will be coming in June in a reddit post, and had also mentioned that it would make an announcement about cheaters.

McCoy claimed that the recent efforts have reduced the total number of matches on PC affected by continued abuse from cheaters and spammers, and that the recently-added reporting tool for the game client has had a significant impact on how Respawn’s developers discover new cheats.

Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) has also helped find “previously undetectable cheats” automatically, McCoy wrote. Notably, the anti-cheat mechanism used for Apex Legends is also implemented by Fortnite: Battle Royale, an esports title in the same genre.

“Our long-term goal is to ensure Apex Legends always feels alive and thriving, with a focus on quality of content over novelty or speed of release,” said McCoy.

With new game modes currently in development, Respawn’s sustained efforts to address exploits, provide balance changes, and resolve game-breaking bugs has brought renewed confidence to its player community.

Having made US$92 million in its first month, it’s likely that Apex Legends will continue to grow, and could finally mature into a highly competitive title worthy of the attention it’s been receiving from esports organizations worldwide.