Two of Apex Legends highest-ranked players banned for cheating

Respawn Entertainment has dropped the ban hammer on two of Apex Legends’ highest-ranked players, after a handful of professional players made complaints to the security team.

[jwplayer vP8vm9zZ] Despite a constant and never-ending effort to stamp out cheaters in Apex, they are still all-too-common at even the highest ranks. There have been a couple of names that the community has had their eye on for some time now, and it appears they have finally been quashed, thanks once again to Respawn’s security lead Conor Ford, aka Hideouts. These players were among the top 10 in the global rankings for Ranked mode in Apex Legends, clearly ruining the experience for other, legitimate players.

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On January 22, Hideouts posted a simple but effective message: his trusty ban hammer x2. https://twitter.com/RSPN_Hideouts/status/1352775970642513921 It didn’t take long for the community to identify one of the culprits as ‘invulnerableFPS’ – who had played under other pseudonyms in previous ranked seasons.

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TSM pro and Halo legend Eric ‘Snip3down’ Wrona was happy to see the player whom they had suspected of cheating finally get their deserved punishment. https://twitter.com/Snip3down/status/1352767018584338432 With the ban, these players are now removed from the ranked leaderboards, allowing legitimate players to get their proper ranking. Apex Tracker, a website that keeps track of the highest-ranked players through an API, confirmed the bans with a Respawn rep, updating the standings accordingly. https://twitter.com/Apex_Tracker/status/1352780549589520384 Although these bans are welcomed and are a positive step, cheating is an issue that remains pervasive at all levels of Apex Legends.

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Hideouts is widely praised in the community for his work against hackers but is only one individual, and players feel a more effective anti-cheat is necessary on a system level. With that said, Apex is still fairing better than its battle royale rival, Warzone, which appears to have absolutely no effective anti-cheat system whatsoever – an issue that has affected big-money tournaments.