Apex Legends player count struggles as ‘boring’ season 17 trudges on

Apex Legends hit new highs at the beginning of season 16, breaking records with the highest player count and peaks in its four year lifetime, but the community reception to season 17 has been lukewarm, with many additions and changes failing to captivate and motivate players like before.

According to Steam Charts, the daily peak player count today reached the lowest point in Season 17, despite being only one month in, a third of the way through the entire season. In comparison to Season 16, the low daily player peak was recorded at the end of the season, raising many questions about Respawn’s vision for Apex’s future, with the majority of their seasonal changes receiving negative attention.

Respawn promised its biggest changes in the season 17 patch notes to the ranked ladder, including a new MMR system, equalized entry cost among all ranks, and adjusted point values, hoping to encourage survival over kills and “winning” the battle royale by placing in the top half of the lobby.

However, the changes completely backfired, as players exploited the system through strategies such as ratting, actively ignoring enemy teams and choosing to hide away from fights instead of taking them, leading to many streamers and viewers calling season 17 as the most boring Apex season to date. 

Related: One Apex Support’s popularity has spiked in season 17—and it might be due to ratting

Even the most popular pros like TSM’s ImperialHal have criticized the state of the game, bringing up his own experiences and the falling Twitch channels and viewer numbers in comparison to last season. For many ALGS pros, the two month gap between Split 2 and the London Playoffs have also impacted their motivation to stream, as many see the current state of ranked as boring and un-fun, with Apex dropping in all metrics during the month of May compared to the final days of season 16 in April.

Although Apex reached its highest number of Masters players, the community has just as quickly dropped the game once players achieved their desired rank. One change in season 17 that heavily contributes to this sentiment is having only one ranked split instead of two for the entire season. Getting rid of the mid-season rank reset entirely has discouraged players from keeping up the grind to the top.

The first event of season 17, Threat Level, was initially hyped up with a community poll to decide the limited time mode paired with the event, but fans were disappointed with their options. Instead of never-before seen LTMs like Sun Squad’s Heatwave or Veiled’s Deadeye, players could only choose from Deathmatch, Gun Run, and Control, game modes already featured in the permanent Mixtape playlist introduced in season 16 during the Imperial Guard Event.

Players were already unhappy with Control as the LTM for Threat Level, but were further angered when the shop lineup was revealed, as all items included were reskins of past battle pass skins already previously featured in the game, despite Respawn’s own acknowledgement of the community’s negative feedback in past event patch notes.

Even the new season 17 features failed to excite new and old fans of Apex, as their design promoted artificial grinding and difficulty for little rewards. One new system was Weapon Mastery, which tracked each weapon’s total time used, damage, kills, and more stats up to 100 levels. By raising a gun to max level and completing all challenges, players would be rewarded with badges, trackers, and even a legendary skin.

However, the community would be once again disappointed with the last reward. Instead of being an exclusive skin for completing the grind and beating all weapon trials, players would instead be rewarded with a random base-game legendary skin for their efforts, a snub in the face for long-time players who already have all skins, wasting their time and efforts.

Season 17 of Apex was hyped up to be one of the best seasons for its number of additions to the base game and changes to the ranked system, but has proven to be a bore for the majority of its player base. With the season and battle pass set to expire on Aug. 8, players will look to Respawn for a mid-season patch or event that could target the multiple sources of their complaints.