It seems the recent hacks targeting Apex Legends have delayed the progress on Respawn Entertainment’s work on cross-progression for the game, according to its Game Director Chad Grenier. The studio has been continuously plagued with hackers attacking both Titanfall and Apex, with the most recent attack occurring just yesterday, taking down Titanfall 2’s multiplayer servers.
Earlier this month, Apex Legends was targeted by hackers as a way of protesting the ongoing issues with hackers in Titanfall 1, in an attempt to draw attention to a plethora of problems that players feel have been purposely ignored and left unresolved by Respawn and EA. During the hack, players in Apex Legends were met with various messages stating “Let’s Save Titanfall,” while also pleading for the developers to take action and address the problems that have plagued Titanfall for over three years.
Apex fans eagerly awaiting the arrival of the cross-progression feature for the free-to-play battle royale may have to wait a little longer for its arrival, according to its Game Director, Chad Grenier. In a Tweet responding to a fan's question on the current status of cross-progression for Apex Legends, Grenier stated that the recent hacks on Titanfall and Apex have delayed the studio’s progress on the feature, stating that “we context switch to solving live game issues.” Although the cross-platform play was introduced to the battle royale in late 2020, the implementation of cross-progression comes with an added layer of challenge, with Grenier previously stating that merging users with multiple accounts is much harder, post-launch.
Despite the attempts from dedicated fans to draw attention to Titanfall, and a record-breaking increase in concurrent players during a recent free-to-play weekend, Respawn Entertainment revealed that the studio’s focus had not shifted, with its attention predominately on Apex Legends. The studio’s Community Director, Jason Garza explained to fans that Respawn has only “one or two” developers currently working on Titanfall, adding that they had not completely forgotten or abandoned the community. Respawn’s Director of Communications, Ryan Rigney, also shed some light on how the hacks on Titanfall have affected the studio’s projects, stating that it requires “weeks of work” for developers to address each new hack or exploit.
It is unfortunate that the developers at Respawn must constantly shift their focus from improving their games to addressing attacks from hackers. Although it is understandable that Titanfall fans are frustrated with the state of the game, it seems the extreme methods they have employed to garner some attention for their plight has only frustrated both Apex devs and players. Considering that each new attack seems to set the studio’s progress back by weeks, and unless the attacks stop, Apex Legends fans may have to settle in for a bit more waiting before cross-progression can be implemented.
Apex Legends is available on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
Source: Chad Grenier/Twitter