Apex Legends cheaters reportedly being kicked out with permanent hardware bans

By Aaron Mamiit Published May 5, 2019

Respawn Entertainment is reportedly ramping up the crackdown on Apex Legends cheaters through permanent hardware bans against PC players.

The permanent bans against cheaters on the battle royale shooter’s PC version first surfaced on a thread on the official Apex Legends sub-Reddit. The thread contained screenshots of posts from cheating forums showing complaints from players that they have been unable to rejoin the game after having their account banned.

Recommended Videos

The ban, apparently, is no longer just on the cheater’s account. Respawn is reportedly issuing permanent hardware bans, so the cheaters who create new accounts on their PCs are getting banned almost immediately.

The screenshot in the opening post of the aforementioned thread on the Apex Legends sub-Reddit revealed a cheater who has tried nearly everything, including changing the MAC address, reformatting, and partitioning the hard drives of the PC, all to no avail.

There still appears to be a limited number of ways for players who received permanent hardware bans to get back into the game, including buying a whole new PC. That seems like a pretty bad deal just to play one game, but it goes to show that cheaters never prosper. Apex Legends players who choose to play the game the correct way, meanwhile, are not sympathetic to the plight of cheaters, even ones that claim that they will no longer use cheating software.

With the permanent hardware bans, Respawn is raising the bar for other developers in addressing the issue of cheating in online multiplayer games. While Epic Games is notoriously unable to fight against cheating in rival Battle Royale shooter Fortnite, Respawn is making sure that cheaters do not ruin the Apex Legends experience.

Fighting against cheating has always been one of the major focuses of Respawn with Apex Legends. In less than two weeks after the game was launched, the studio said that it had already banned more than 16,000 cheaters. Earlier in March, Respawn said that the number of banned cheaters was up to 355,000 on the PC version of the game, while promising that an in-game report feature will soon be added to make it even harder for cheaters to escape the banhammer.

Topics

Contributor

Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…

Gaming

Apex Legends’ newest character is a deadly sniper with an adorable bat pal

Vantage stands with her sniper rifle in Apex Legends.

Ahead of the start of Apex Legends Season 14: Hunted on August 9, EA and Respawn Entertainment went into more detail about the new Legend coming to the game at the start of the season. Her name is Vantage, and she's shaping up to be a deadly sniper with an adorable bat companion.
Vantage's backstory, which we got to see a bit of in July, consists of her growing up alone with her mother on the ice planet of Pagos. Her mother is secretly an escaped prisoner, and when Vantage almost dies exploring an abandoned ship, her mother has to turn herself in so she can get medical help for her daughter. Following this, Vantage enters the Apex Games in order to spread awareness about her mother's capture and eventually free her one day.
Vantage's passive ability is called Spotter's Lens. With that, she can scan an enemy's Legend name, team size, range, and shield rarity from a distance. Her Tactical Ability is called Echo Relocation, and she can use it to send Echo to a spot on the map before jetpacking to it. Thankfully, Respawn developers confirmed that players can't kill Echo, so players don't have to worry about putting this cute companion in danger.Her Ultimate ability is called Sniper's Mark, and it's one of the most unique ones in the game. Vantage summons her custom sniper rifle with Sniper's Mark. It has five bullets, and if she hits an enemy with it, Vantage will highlight their squad for ten seconds. Damage from her sniper rifle and allies scales up with consecutive hits, and all the shots don't need to be made at once, so Vantage can be quite deadly if a player knows how to use her properly. Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch. Season 14: Hunted begins August 9.

Gaming

Apex Legends’ next season increases the level cap and removes self-revive

Relic is a new part of Kings Canyon's rework in Apex Legends Season 14.

Season 14 of Apex Legends is almost upon us, so Respawn Entertainment and EA revealed some of the major reworks coming to the game with when the Hunted season begins. Namely, the developers highlighted the redesigned Kings Canyon, increased level cap, and balance updates like the removal of self-revive.
In 2020, Loba blew up Skull Town in Kings Canyon. Now, the entire map is seeing a rework as part of Season 14 to improve the pacing and balance of matches on the map. Skull Town is now called Relic and is a bit bigger, the Cage was reworked to be a little lower and more vulnerable, Hillside's interiors were removed, and Broken Relay is now called Basin and got new buildings. Those, along with the other visual update Kings Canyon got, should make this old Apex Legends map feel brand new again.

Another big change is coming to account levels. Previously, there were 500 levels for players to work their way through. Starting with Season 14, players can work their way to level 500 three more times, technically increasing the level cap to 2000. This means that players will now be able to earn 544 Apex Packs and an Heirloom by leveling up. The start of Season 14 will also introduce some notable balance changes to Apex Legends, as is to be expected.
Some notable changes are that SMGs and pistols have a new laser sight attachment, the Wingman will now use sniper ammo, the Spitfire will now light ammo, the EVA-8 will see an increased fire rate, handling, and reload speed, and more. Most notably though, self-revive is getting removed. This is complicated by a change to Gold Equipment perks, including a new one for the Backpack called Deep Pockets that increases the number of medical supplies players can carry.Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch. Season 14 begins on August 9.

Gaming

How to get Legend Tokens in Apex Legends

Bloodhound stands with their crow Artur in Apex Legends.

Apex Legends uses a variety of in-game currencies to facilitate character unlocks and customization options. Crafting Metals and Apex Coins might be the most popular forms of currency, but Legend Tokens are arguably just as important. They’re not easy to come by, yet they offer some significant benefits and are worth chasing down.

Here’s how to get Legend Tokens in Apex Legends, the fastest ways to farm them, and what they can be used to purchase.