An impossible Apex Legends play shows how thin the line is between CFG changes and cheating

Cheating is universally hated in Apex Legends. But sometimes, the difference between cheating and optimization is hazy, as a case of CFG use showed recently.

A fan shared a video on a Reddit thread on April 17 of a player using CFG to win an early trade against the clip’s author. In the video, the player noticeably controls his jump midair and bunny hops at an incredible speed to prevent the player from aiming at him correctly.

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“0 counter play whatsoever, Respawn please ban controller players who use CFG’s,” the thread’s title reads. The player dealt some damage to the opponent, but he was slow compared to them. It wasn’t enough and he was knocked down first.

Under the thread, players have been debating whether some CFG uses like this one should be explicitly banned.

“That’s a full 180 strafe in the air without even landing in the blink of an eye,” one user said. “This isn’t even playing if you automate movement to this extreme and have a macro get out of jail free card so don’t have to commit to any action an actual player has to.”

Playing Apex with modified Configuration Files isn’t prohibited by EA Games’ rules. Players can change them for a large variety of reasons, from making the game more accessible to helping them perform some challenging actions in the game such as tapstrafing or supergliding. Those two actions can be performed without adjusting CFG, but they are difficult to learn.

Sometimes, however, CFG are not only adjusted to get a better game experience but rather abused to earn an unfair advantage over opponents. In that case, players could be punished by the developer, but since they don’t involve third-party tools, they can be challenging to detect.

Respawn Entertainment frequently provides updates on its efforts to curb cheating issue in Apex Legends. In March, Head Security Conor Ford revealed the developer rolled yet another fix to an exploit where cheaters forced their opponents to reload indefinitely, making them unable to fight back.