Apex Legends Developers Share Strong Words for July 4 Hackers

The development team behind Apex Legends isn't happy about the hack over July 4 weekend—to say the least.

Apex Legends suffered a devastating attack over July 4 weekend that locked the entire player base out of, well, actually playing the game. Spurred by frustrations over the state of Respawn Entertainment's sister title, Titanfall 2, hackers were able to hold Apex Legends hostage for over 10 hours and direct players to a site dedicated to "saving" Titanfall. In short: the group accused Respawn of committing fraud by selling a game that the users deemed "unplayable" due to widespread DDoS attacks.

Well, if the group wanted developer attention, they certainly have it now—just not in the way they would've hoped.

Respawn Responds to July 4 Hacking

Ryan K. Rigney, Communications Director for Respawn, took to Twitter to publicly respond to the incident in a thread published on Tuesday, July 6. Needless to say, he had some strong words for those responsible.

Rigney opened by attaching an opinion piece written by The Gamer's Eric Switzer. Switzer chastised the hackers in his article and claimed there was "absolutely no sense in doing what these hackers have done."

"Nobody wants to hear devs complain when DDoS attacks are still a problem we haven't solved. But this article is right," Rigney wrote, "I was holding my newborn nephew when I found out about the Apex hack. Had to hand him back, go work, and miss out on a day with family."

Both Rigney and Switzer reminded readers that Respawn has acknowledged the presence of DDoS attacks and other issues with Titanfall multiple times—going as far as to dig up the former's short rant from late May.

"The problem's not awareness. It's that DDoSing in particular is just a hard problem to solve. Really hard," wrote Rigney.

He continued on to explain that Respawn has never stopped working on techniques to combat DDoS attacks, hackers, and other illicit activity. The lack of progress simply stems from the nature of creating safe software: it's a never ending battle.

As anyone who has had the distinct pleasure of working in cybersecurity will tell you, there will likely never be a way to keep hackers out permanently. Those who want to cheat will find a way to do so. In turn, the developers will find a way to patch that, and the cycle will repeat.

Regarding those who attacked Apex Legends, Rigney had one thing to say:

"They achieved nothing of value," he wrote, "We WILL solve this. When we do, I promise you it won't be because hackers 'made us aware' by ruining a holiday.

The official SaveTitanfall.com website still denies any association "with the recent Apex Legends hack." However, DBLTAP cannot confirm or disprove this statement at the time of writing.