Anyone who has played Apex Legends for a season — and sometimes even less than that — will undoubtedly know that the game has problems. Certain issues like hits not registering are claimed to be fixed, but creep back up as time passes. Again, this is just kind of what you accept as an Apex Legends player. And yet, a recent problem stemming from an event is still a little bit funny and frustrating.
The recent Harbingers Collection Event started on Sept. 19 and brought out a new Revenant-themed grenade called the Rev Shell. When thrown, it will travel in a straight line until it senses an enemy and then quickly change course to track them. They are hilariously persistent and provide a fun twist for the game’s Halloween event. The Rev Shell also factors into one of the event’s challenge badges that required players to deal 1,000 damage with them.
But a problem quickly arose in which players noticed that their damage wasn’t tracking. The day after the event started on Sept. 20, Respawn Entertainment announced on Twitter that they were looking into the issue and would also be lowering the required damage to 500 instead. While the untracked damage couldn’t be applied retroactively, this at least made up for it a little.
They announced that the tracking issue had been corrected on Sept. 22, but the fix lowering the damage to 500 was still on the way. While this fixed the core of the problem, it didn’t help players who had already dumped a lot of time into the challenge and received nothing for their effort.
With the event set to end at 1:00 PM ET on Oct. 3, Respawn Entertainment tweeted out at 1:00 PM ET on Oct. 2 that they pushed out a patch to fix it. While PCs might get these patches rather quickly, consoles don’t quite have the same luxury.
As of midnight on Oct. 3, I still hadn’t gotten this patch. It was only when I turned my PS5 on this morning that it started downloading. Funnily enough, that left roughly four hours in which I could collect the 500 damage for an issue that Respawn acknowledged two weeks ago.
I know, it’s just a badge in an event that will get lost amongst all my other Apex Legends event accolades. But it’s more than that because this isn’t the only issue that there has been in a game where it feels like problems and bugs aren’t being resolved quickly enough. Yes, it got fixed, but it took until just about the expiration of the event and likely dropped at a time when most players couldn’t sit down and dedicate time to it.
It’s unclear exactly what Respawn’s priority is with the game, as basic game issues like hit registration and server breakage are still somewhat common. Just earlier this year in March, the prize tracker for the Imperial Guard Collection Event broke for many players. Respawn announced that, while they were looking into it, a fix wouldn’t come before the event ended.
It would be nice if this led to some sort of overall change where it didn’t take two weeks to fix a widespread problem, but it is unclear if that will ever happen. Considering this happened in a collection event that brings in tons of money, it should have been corrected sooner.
More than anything though, it’s concerning for the long-term sustainability of Apex Legends that bugs aren’t always prioritized properly, whether it be issues within the UI or the game itself. I’m unlikely to stop playing Apex Legends anytime in the near future, but it’s rough when it feels like fixes and changes aren’t the top priority, even after being publicly acknowledged.
