Apex Legends developer bans 905 accounts following Rookie Rank exploit

The Apex Legends developer has resolved an exploit that allowed players, mostly on PlayStation 5, to enter Ranked matches as Rookie IV. This exploit bypassed entry costs, provided Rookie-tier kill bonuses, set Matchmaking Rating to 0, and allowed players to add RP to their actual Ranked scores. Following an investigation, the developer banned 905 accounts and deducted 15,112,554 total RP.

Apex Legends · official art via IGDB

Banned accounts included 848 on PlayStation, 44 on Xbox, 12 on PC, and 2 on Nintendo Switch 2. Suspension lengths varied by the amount of RP gained: 731 accounts received 120-day bans for up to 4,999 RP, 107 accounts received 240-day bans for 5,000–9,999 RP, and 67 accounts received 365-day bans for 10,000 or more RP. The developer says players who used the exploit unintentionally were not banned.

The developer also updated Crypto by shortening his drone recall time from 6 seconds to 0.7 seconds. This change follows a rework, and the developer says more changes for the character are planned for a future client update. Additionally, the developer fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when using ordnance while controlling Crypto's drone and patched an exploit involving Evac Towers.

Background On November 3, the Apex Legends: Cipher seasonal update launched, which included a battery-powered Crypto drone and a rework of his mechanics. Our earlier story