Heat Shield disabled in Apex Legends ranked mode, private matches

Apex Legends’ newest piece of equipment, the Heat Shield, has been temporarily disabled while Respawn Entertainment works on some bugs.

The new item will still be available in public matches, but in ranked and private matches, it’s disabled “until further notice,” Respawn said today. There have been quite a few bugs discovered with the item since it was added to the game in the Chaos Theory event just a few days ago.

Respawn said it’s “aiming to fix some bugs” with the Heat Shield by early next week, but those playing the Ring Fury Takeover playlist will likely still experience existing issues for the time being.

One of the more annoying bugs, marked under “investigating” on the Apex Trello page, is the Heat Shield’s sounds being heard across the map when another team uses them. Players will often hear a Heat Shield as if it’s directly next to them, even when it’s nowhere to be seen, with very loud volume.

In another update today, Respawn has limited matches to two “no-fill” players per game to temporarily fix an issue that was causing games to start with fewer than 60 players.

The Chaos Theory Ring Fury Takeover event is scheduled to run until March 23.