The latest season of Apex Legends, which started alongside the game’s launch on Steam, is off to an extremely rocky start due to the changes made in the game’s battle pass, which slows down the progression to a crawl.
Many players thought this was another attempt to grab more cash by having them purchase the battle pass, and this is why EA received a lot of harsh criticism for the change.
Not to mention, considering how the ranking system is already quite tedious in its own right, with way too many players never reaching Master and Apex Predator above Diamond, the slowed-down progression of the battle pass may have only added more fuel to the fire.
The backlash was so significant that EA had to immediately amend the changes, with Ryan Rigney, Respawn’s director of community and communications, officially coming out on Reddit to apologize to the players.
“I don’t know how else to respond to this other than by saying, bluntly, we aren’t masters of manipulation. We actually just screwed this one up.
Ryan Rigney
Here’s what he tweeted out:
“Today in a meeting with a bunch of leads, Chad, our game director, was like, ‘hey, I played for six hours last night, why did I only get one level.’ And like three other people chimed in to go, basically, yes, Reddit is right, this feels bad, and somebody should’ve called it out earlier. We had a conversation where we realized that–because we often reset our accounts and wipe our progress when swapping builds for playtests–a lot of hadn’t been paying attention to what it felt like to go through the s7 battle pass.”
Ryan Rigney
He also tried to reason with everyone by saying how companies can also make mistakes, and not every move is manipulative.
He also stated that stars are being used to measure the battle pass point because they are a better measure than Challenge Points, comparatively speaking.
“The thing with live-service games is, you gotta learn to iterate. You gotta try new shit every once in a while. When you put out something new, and it’s got problems, devs don’t want to just completely turn tail and run. They wanna understand it deeply, maybe tweak a few knobs here or there and then watch the impact to see if maybe they can’t learn something new.”
“Maybe we should abandon stars and all the rest that came with the S7 Battle Pass changes. Maybe we shouldn’t. That’s not my call. I’m just the comms guy. But I would always want to put in an honest effort to try to keep the good and fix the bad by iterating first. Otherwise you miss out on chances to learn, and you let fear keep you frozen in place.”
Regardless, let’s hope that it isn’t too late for the team over at Respawn Entertainment to fix the problem. Till then, all players can do is enjoy the game and the newly added time-traveling character Horizon!
| Minimum Specs | Recommended Specs | |
| OS | 64-bit Windows 7 | 64-bit Windows 7 |
| Processor | AMD FX 4350 or Equivalent, Intel Core i3 6300 or Equivalent | Ryzen 5 CPU or Equivalent |
| Memory | 6 GB RAM | 8 GB RAM |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon™ HD 7730, NVIDIA GeForce® GT 640 | AMD Radeon™ R9 290, NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 970 |
| DirectX | Version 11 | Version 11 |
| Storage | 22 GB available space | 22 GB available space |
About Apex Legends
Apex Legends is a free-to-play FPS battle-royale game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. Upto 20 three-person squads or 30 two-person duos land on an island, scavenge for weapons and supplies and attempt to kill the other players until they are the only team left.
The game features excellent combat and movement mechanics and is generally regarded as one of the more competent battle-royale games out there. Players can choose one amongst the many pre-prepared character models, each of which has it own playstyle and unique move-set.
The game was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on February 4, 2019. A Nintendo Switch version released in March 2021. Android and iOS ports are planned for 2022.
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