Origin pulls back Refer-a-Friend promo while solving Apex Legends coin exploit

With a ton of buzz surrounding the upcoming release of Apex Legends‘ long-awaited Battle Pass, Origin is taking some steps to fix the coin exploit that made rounds in the community two days ago.

Origin is discontinuing the Refer-a-Friend promotion that was one of the sources of the exploit. Players were adding code to their Origin launcher that allowed them to get the Origin Access subscriber loot for free. This included 1,000 Apex coins, a Flatline Epic Weapon skin, and a special Banner Badge.

This isn’t the first time that players used the Origin launcher to get paid content for free in Apex. Last month, users discovered a way to acquire the Twitch Prime exclusive loot by inputting a code into the advanced launch settings of the game. As a result, Respawn Entertainment had to find all the accounts who used the exploit and remove the skin from their inventory.

This time, Respawn and EA aren’t being too lenient with perpetrators of the exploit, with multiple players saying their account was banned after using the workaround.

As Respawn and Origin work to patch the coin exploit, this could also mean that the release of the Battle Pass is right around the corner. Many people believe that the Battle Pass drop was delayed due to the unfortunate timing of the Apex coin exploit, which would have allowed many users to acquire the Battle Pass for free since the price was leaked to be 950 Apex coins.

Once these holes are patched up, we should get more news on the Battle Pass from Respawn. The developer told fans on the game’s subreddit that it will be providing details on season one and the Battle Pass very soon. There shouldn’t be anything else hindering its release, unless another bug or exploit is discovered again.