Apex pros and streamers band together with plea to ‘save Apex ranked’

Apex Legends content creators and pros are using the hashtag #SaveApexRanked to show their dissatisfaction with Respawn’s actions against hacking in the game. The movement formed just after the studio revealed it was pursuing “several options” to fight against cheaters.

NRG’s Chris “sweetdreams” Sexton sparked the initiative with a TwitLonger post called “Empty Promises and False Hope,” in which the streamer recounted his frustrations with the state of ranked in Apex. Other high-profile pros and content creators followed suit.

Streamer Nokokopuffs responded that “words are said and minds are calmed but the problem remains,” and pleaded for Respawn to save the competitive mode before it’s too late. Alliance’s Kha “iPN-k0u” Nguyen added that he has no motivation to try ranked “because it’s just not fun nor productive constantly running into [DDoSers] and cheaters.” Various other creators lent their support to the cause, too.

Respawn director of comms Ryan Rigney acknowledged that sweetdreams had some “very valid complaints.” “We’ve gotta crack down on the cheating and make real progress,” he wrote. “Actions are needed, not just words.”

The #SaveApexRanked movement sprung to life shortly after Respawn revealed another round of measures to “crack down” on cheating in Apex. They include bringing in more employees to “focus on manual bans,” finding more tools to “catch and remove cheaters from games” more quickly, and developing new devices to “automatically detect and stop DDOS attacks.”

The emergence of the hashtag is a symptom of a serious, complex issue with cheating in Apex. Although Respawn has offered a handful of measures to solve the problem, its results may not be instant or even sufficient.

“Let this tweet serve as a way to hold them accountable for what they say is going to happen,” sweetdreams said.