Apex Legends news & patch notes

Welcome to the Matchmaking Recruitment Drive for Split 2 of Season 29! 

It’s no secret, Apex Legends is best played alongside a squad that operates like a well oiled machine! Playing solo against fully coordinated enemy squads can be a challenge - so we wanted to help! In need of teammates that match your playstyle? We’ve got you covered! 

A fresh new squad in three easy steps: fill out the questions below, drop them in the thread, find your perfect squadmate.

• What server region are you in?

• What platform do you play on?

• What mode do you prefer (Ranked, Pubs, Wildcard, Mixtape)?

• What is your current Rank?

• What days / times do you typically play?

• Who are your mains?

• Hot drop or land far out and loot? 

• How would you describe your playstyle (aggressive, balanced, passive, play for final ring)?

• How do you prefer to communicate with your team (mic, pings, chat)?

Share your own details, and connect with fellow players that look like they’d be a great fit! Let’s find you a match made in the Outlands!

✅FIXED: Banners will no longer appear in Wildcard death boxes.

Goooood morning Night City! The Outlands have been hacked and the Legends are getting chromed up. Welcome to Night City E-District, with towering neon skyboxes, holographic koi drifting through the sky, and glitched-out signage. So jack in, pop a fresh mag into Skippy, and try not to flatline.

Two new Cyberware mods are flooding the streets in Wildcard: Sandevistan and Blackwall Breach. Sandevistan is wired for speed, granting quick dashes in any direction: chain two dashes before touching ground to close gaps or ghost out of danger. Blackwall Breach phases you into the Net to reposition, then unleashes a disruptive EMP as you return. 

Reports of Cyberpsychosis are on the rise. Your Cyberware Capacity fills as you use Cyberware. Redline it and you go full Cyberpsycho. High movement speed, devastating melee damage, but no weapons, no abilities, no shields, and no ordnance. Keep your chrome in check or reverse Cyberpsychosis with Immunoblocker Syringes scattered across the map or Immunoblocker Caches that fully reset your meter.

“Would you like me to engage Stone Cold Killer?” Hunt down the Mythic Skippy Alternator, activate “Puppy Loving Pacifist” or “Stone Cold Killer” mode, and let Skippy tell you exactly what a bad person you are. Upgrade Skippy with Exotic Shards to unlock new visuals, ordnance skins, and knock effects. Skippy approves. Probably.

Earn Eddies throughout the event to spend in the Reward Shop, which includes an Arasaka Epic Valkyrie Skin, a Kang-Tao Epic Mirage Skin, and more. Upgrade your look with 8 preem Legend Skins for Axle, Sparrow, Lifeline, Crypto, Rampart, Loba, Ash, Gibraltar. And fresh iron is hitting the streets, with 8 Weapon Skins for the Wingman, Charge Rifle, Mastiff, L-STAR, P2020, RE-45, R-301, and Kraber. 

Good luck out there, choom. Chrome up and die a Legend.

Cheating has consequences beyond a single account. 

Since the end of April, we have executed nearly 6,000 hardware bans across PC and console. While the majority of those bans impacted players on PC, we are actively increasing our utilization of hardware bans on consoles. 

Hardware bans are one of many tools in our Anti-Cheat Team’s toolbelt and allow us to target systems designed to evade enforcement. Our tools identify repeat offenders and ensure that they will be unable to access Apex Legends,  even if they spin up new accounts.

We occasionally see the community requesting hardware bans as a more permanent punishment for cheaters, and we wanted to provide more transparency into the matter - hardware bans are happening (and they’re represented in our ban number comms) and we are planning to utilize them even more, especially on consoles.

So, “why isn’t every ban worthy of a hardware ban?” Hardware bans are our most severe penalty so we reserve it as a proportional response when we encounter high severity cheating. We strive to reform rather than permanently banishing players from our game, so hardware bans typically target malicious bad actors and serial cheaters.

We are continuing to invest in new detections, strengthen our enforcement, and take action against those who threaten the integrity of Apex Legends. Fair play remains our priority.

Effective immediately, the use of “jitter aim” and/or RC filters to exploit aim assist systems and negate recoil on controllers is unequivocally considered cheating. We are taking a firm stance against players using these cheats and are taking action to stop them.

Apex Legends is now equipped with the necessary in-game detections to identify and disable these exploits. Players who are caught attempting to use hardware or software to alter aim assist or recoil patterns will be flagged as cheaters and have their accounts banned in accordance with our TOS.

We are implementing this crackdown at a crucial time, to support fair play at EWC Paris, in addition to maintaining competitive integrity across Apex Legends. While we are implementing this solution to combat the issue, we have alternate anti-cheat approaches we can pivot to should we need them. We will continue to monitor the situation and make additional changes as necessary.

Hello, we just pushed a patch for the following:

FIXED:

• A bug where some players experienced limited movement after landing from a dropship

• E-District now uses the correct map overview

Welcome to the Apex Legends x Cyberpunk Event, where the neon lights of E-District beckon in Wildcard and Cyberware floods the streets. But be careful: reports of Cyberpsychosis are on the rise. Hunt down the Mythic Skippy Alternator and Iconic Legend skins, and earn Eddies throughout the event to spend in the Reward Shop.

Learn more: http://x.ea.com/apxl/cyberpunk-event

Experience a world of thrill with EA Play. Join to get great player benefits and unlimited access to an unrivaled collection of EA’s fan-favorite franchises and top titles. Members can unlock rewards in the hottest titles each month, including Weapon Charms in Apex Legends. Dive into all the game-winning, world-creating, and galaxy-defining moments in The Play List or discover a new favorite with trials of select recent releases for up to 10 hours with no commitments. If you decide to buy, your progress carries over to the full game, ready for what’s next. Plus, members score 10% off EA digital purchases, saving on full games, points packs, and DLC. Find out more about upcoming EA Play benefits at https://store.steampowered.com/subscriptions/ea or follow us on X (Twitter) and Instagram @eaplay.

*Conditions, limitations, and exclusions apply. See https://tos.ea.com/legalapp/eaplay/us/en/pc/ for details.

Hey Legends!

We’ll be answering as many questions as possible about Legend & Weapon meta this Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at 10 am PT.

Drop your questions below ahead of our AMA and tune back for replies when we go live. As always, feedback is also welcome and we’ll be collecting everything to share with the team.

Here’s our team on deck:

RSPN_Caseroos

RSPN_Eric

RSPN_Josh

RSPN_JayBiebs

Reminder: Please keep your questions focused on Legends / Legend meta. Please limit comments to 1-2 related questions - you can always send more replies! If you’ve got off topic questions, let us know which AMA we should host next.

Chat soon!

Hi all, just pushed a couple more fixes.

FIXED:

• Octane's jump pads will no longer bounce unintended objects (thank you for making the most of this bug with firing range clips, they made us chuckle).

• Made adjustments to further improve recent FPS fixes.

FIXED:

We just pushed a fix that should mitigate lingering FPS issues resulting from hardware-specific issues on some PCs since the beginning of the split. Your gameplay experience should be much smoother now.

Hey Legends,

We’re always looking for ways to improve how we support and engage players across our community spaces, including Steam Discussions.

We would like your help with this 9 question survey. The survey is focused on understanding your experience with the Apex Legends Steam Discussions community space, including:

• What you expect when visiting Steam Discussions

• How helpful and informative you find the space

• What kinds of support or communication matter most to you

• How satisfied you are with the overall experience

Your feedback will help us better understand what players want from the Steam Discussions experience and how we can continue improving communication and support for the community.

The survey is completely voluntary and should only take a few minutes to complete. We appreciate anyone who takes the time to share their thoughts.

Thanks for helping us make the Apex Legends community experience better for everyone.

Along with today's update, we made the following changes 🛠️ADJUSTED:

Increased the audio volume when respawning from a Death Box to improve clarity

✅FIXED:

An issue where Sparrow could respawn with a fully charged Ultimate

FIXED:

After resolving issues causing error code:truck on Steam and EA App last week, we're happy to confirm that this error code has been fixed on all consoles as well. Thank you for your patience on this issue.

ADJUSTED:

Seer

Reduced the Home Base (Faster Tact Charge in Ult zone) Upgrade modifier to 2.5. This will make the Tactical cooldown 8 seconds instead of 5 while in the Ult zone.

Moved Home Base Upgrade to level 3

Moved Energizing Focus (Regen shield on tact hit) Upgrade to level 2

Dev note: We have seen the frustrations surrounding Seer and are making urgent changes. The above changes are meant to reduce the frequency with which you'll encounter Seer's Tactical. At split start, the the most picked Upgrades (2 Tac charges / reduced Tac cooldown in Ult) saw ~90% and ~80% pick rates, respectively. When combined, players have access to 2 Tac charges on a very short cooldown. By moving both to level 3, players can only have one. These changes should address complaints of Tactical spamming in Ult, while keeping the intended power of those two upgrades in place. As we discussed in our most recent Designer's Notes, Seer is a tricky Legend to balance, as a prominent Seer meta is an oppressive one; we will continue to monitor Seer's performance and make additional adjustments as necessary.

CORRECTION:

Recently we mentioned that changes to Bot Royale Evolved would ensure only one player squad in each match. This was a miscommunication, as most* matches will only have one squad. In it's current state, we're seeing 2 teams in ~5% of matches, closer to 15% in peak hours. We'll continue to monitor match data and sentiment toward the game mode.

✅FIXED: We have now resolved the connection issues that were preventing players from connecting to the game. Thanks for your patience while we worked on a fix. INVESTIGATING: We're aware that some players are having trouble connecting to our servers. We're working on a fix and will share an update as soon as we have more information.

Hey all, we just made a couple adjustments to our game modes based on community feedback.

WILDCARD:

- In response to community feedback, we are converting Wildcard map rotations to a 90 minute timer! We are making this change to align with community desires and may test variations in rotation timing in future, all in pursuit of finding what players enjoy most.

BOT ROYALE EVOLVED:

- We have reduced Bot Royale Evolved lobbies to contain only one player squad with broad teammate matchmaking bands.

- Since Bot Royale evolved we've seen frustration around two prominent pain points: long queue times, and wide skill disparity between squads - both stemming from the 1-5 team lobby parameter. This change should allow players to get into matches much quicker and with less frustration towards your opponents. As such, Bot Royale Evolved should better align with its design intention of being a mode for learning, warmup, practice, and casual play.

One more fix for today! ✅FIXED: We’ve deployed a PC update to mitigate the recent FPS drops tied to specific hardware. Gameplay should feel much smoother now! We will continue monitoring performance as we work toward a permanent fix in an upcoming patch.

✅FIXED: In addition to yesterday's fix for code:truck error on Steam, we have now resolved this issue on the EA App as well. We are on track to have this issue fixed for impacted players on console by Wednesday next week.

Hey all, just pushed two more fixes! ✅FIXED: Resolved the issue causing stuttering when wiping a squad for players playing on the EA App. The fix requires the latest version of the EA App:

https://help.ea.com/en/articles/platforms/ea-app-download-install-update/#update-the-ea-app

🟢FIX ROLLING OUT: We have pushed a fix for players encountering code:truck error screens that will be rolling out over the next week. This solve is now live on Steam, and we are expecting it to hit EA App tomorrow afternoon, and consoles Wednesday next week.

FIXED: - Unprompted Mirage voicelines have been stopped. - Resolved an issue where some players lost control of the Legend upon landing from a dropship. - Resolved an issue that saw the Drop Zone removed from intended high-tier Ranked matches.

INVESTIGATING: - We are actively working towards a fix for players experiencing crashes with the error Code:Truck. - We are continuing to diagnose issues resulting in lowered FPS. TEMPORARILY DEACTIVATED:

- We are temporarily removing the ability for dead teammates to ping on the map. This feature will return.

The previously announced Diamond+ solo-queue-only test will start on June 30th at 10am PT and run until July 13th, or until we have gathered enough data.

During this time, players ranked Diamond or higher will be unable to matchmake as premade squad in into Ranked.

In addition to solidifying the dates of the test, we wanted to take this opportunity to clarify the reason for the delay:

We mentioned in a recent matchmaking blog that we've been doing frequent and varied matchmaking tests and sometimes that pace results in complications. We pointed to outages in the last split that were the result of complications directly connected to these tests, and explained that we're putting steps in place to prioritize stability above all else.

The solo queue test delay was a direct result of these concerns: The team wanted to ensure that all systems are in a stable place to safely and reliably execute this test. Therefore, we need to wait until we're sure. Looking at the stability of matchmaking systems over recent weeks, we should be able proceed on June 30th with minimal risk.

Hey all, busy start to Split 2. We're hard at work on the following.

💡KNOWN ISSUES:

- We are aware that some Ranked matches are starting with fewer than 60 players. We have a fix gradually rolling out and expect the issue to be fully resolved by the end of the day.

- Map rotations have been erroneously reset to 24 hours. This issue will be resolved when the current 24 hour map rotation window expires. Maps will then rotate on 4.5 hour cycles again.

⚠️ INVESTIGATING:

- We are looking into new issues with FPS drops. We've seen player reports that disabling Hyperthreading and updating to the newest drivers helps alleviate the issue. This also could be the result of shader compiling and may self correct after a match or two.

- We are investigating an issue where some players are unable to move after landing from a dropship.

🎯CORRECTION:

- The new Executioner Hop-Up regenerates 50 shields over 5 seconds, not the initially communicated 10 seconds.

We'll be sure to communicate updates as we have them.

INTRO

ANTI-CHEAT UPDATE

PATCH NOTES

LEGENDS

BALLISTIC

Passive

• Ballistic now respawns with his Sling weapon in all game modes.

Tactical

• Overheat now only applies to one weapon.

  • If a player has a weapon out when hit by Whistler the overheat debuff applies only to that weapon.

  • If the player is unarmed when hit by Whistler it applies to the weapon in the first weapon slot.

  • Overheat no longer degrades when not firing or swapping to another weapon.

  • Overheat does not increment when swapping to another weapon and shooting.

• Overheat damage increased from 15 to 50.

• Overheat debuff duration increased from 12 to 15.

• Tactical charges increased from 1 to 2.

• Decreased time between firing and when homing activates.

• The overheat debuff no longer re-applies if you hit someone who is already overheating and you cannot apply it to multiple guns on the same player.

Ultimate

• Ballistic and teammates within range get a sprint boost when his Ultimate is activated. (Previously only Ballistic got a speed boost)

  • Sprint boost will only apply a speed boost while sprinting and will not speed up other types of movement.

Upgrades

• Level 2

  • Extra Bullet: Gain an additional Tactical charge.

  • Trap Mode: When placed in the world, Ballistic’s KTactical lasts 15 seconds and deals 35 damage if an enemy walks into it.

• Level 3

  • Quiet Time: Ballistic’s Tactical no longer applies overheat. Instead it adds silence and slow on hit. It also has a longer cooldown.

  • Killing Time: Now moved to level 3, still provides a 15 second extension to Ballistic’s Ultimate.

PATHFINDER

Passive

• Pathfinder now tucks in his legs while riding horizontal ziplines.

  • This should make him a little harder to hit when riding on his Ultimate and other ziplines in the world. 

Tactical

• Tactical charges increased from 1 to 2.

• Removed the progressive cooldown and it is now a flat 20 seconds.

Ultimate

• Increased launch speed of the zipline projectile.

• Reduced cooldown from 3 minutes to 2 minutes.

Upgrades

• Level 2

  • Field Research: Now grants all Recon perks instead of just the survey beacon scan.

  • Ringmaster: Now grants all Controller perks instead of just the ring console access.

• Level 3

  • Landing Gear: Grants more air control and faster recovery from hard landings. This replaces the 2 Tactical charges Upgrade. 

SEER

Passive

• Increased the activation speed of the heartbeat sensor.

• Decreased the interval time between heartbeats.

• Decreased activation time for unarmed ADSing 

• Made the delay when aiming more consistent between weapon and unarmed. 

  • This means the heartbeat sensor will appear at the same time regardless of the weapon you’re using.

Tactical

• Reduced the delay between the launch and hit.

• Improved the slow on hit, should now halt faster moving Legends more effectively.

Ultimate

• Upon deployment, there is now a quick 2 second scan of the area which will highlight any enemy in the area.

  • Enemies that enter the area after it’s deployed will also be scanned for 2 seconds. 

• Cloaked enemies will now show footsteps if they are within the Ultimate zone. 

AXLE

Tactical

• Reduced max in-world count from 3 to 2.

• Reduced hp from 150 to 100.

Passive/Tactical

• Knocked players can no longer slide across zip codes as Axle or while under the effect of a Nitro Gate. They can still boost through a Nitro Gate, but once the effect times out, they will slow down accordingly.

Upgrades

• "Super Slider" Upgrade no longer grants a second Tactical charge. Instead, it now grants Nitro Gate a 5 second cooldown reduction and +1 max in-world count.

Ultimate

• Kickstart now displaces victims on a parabolic arc based on their velocity at the moment of impact, instead of straight up.

• Reduced enemy highlight duration slightly to better match stun duration.

MAD MAGGIE

Tactical

• Increased Cooldown from 22 seconds to 28 seconds.

Ultimate

• The speed boost granted from running on the pucks dropped by the wrecking ball has been replaced by a sprint boost. 

  • Will no longer speed up all movement, just when sprinting.

VALKYRIE

Passive

• Removed the recent improvement, which allowed her to land faster from skydiving. 

CONDUIT

Tactical

• Decreased Regen Rate from 15/s to 10/s

• Increased Regen Duration from 6s to 8s

• Decreased Ally Total Regen from 90 to 80

• Decreased Conduit Total Regen from 60 to 56

Upgrades

• Level 3

  • Instant Barrier: Increased Regen Duration from 4s to 6s

Tactical

• Increased Cooldown from 27 seconds to 30 seconds

Upgrades

• Level 3

  • Enduring Barrier: No longer grants regen through ring damage

LOOT & ATTACHMENTS

WEAPONS

Hemlok Breach AR

• White magazine reduced from 21 to 20

• Blue magazine reduced from 24 to 22

• Purple and gold magazines reduced from 27 to 25

EVA-8

• Small increase to handling speed.

Mozambique

• Small increase to handling speed.

LOCKED HOP-UPS

Executioner \

• Available on: Peacekeeper and Mastiff

• Knocking an enemy with the weapon grants 50 shield regeneration over 10 seconds

• 375 points to unlock

Dual Shell

• Removed from: Mastiff

Disruptor Rounds

• Removed from: Peacekeeper

Graffiti Mod

• Removed from: Longbow DMR, Wingman and Mozambique

• Added to: Flatline and Volt

Turbocharger

• Added to: Nemesis \

MAPS

Pubs

• Storm Point

• World’s Edge

• Kings Canyon

Ranked

• Storm Point

• World’s Edge

• E-District

Mixtape

• 6/23/26 - 8/4/26

  • TDM: Skull Town, Thunderdome, Fragment, Zeus Station

  • Control: Caustic, Production Yard, Thunderdome, Barometer

  • Gun Run: Monument, Wattson Pylon, Skull Town, Thunderdome

WILDCARD

Wildcard

• Broken Moon Wildcard (6/23/26 - 6/30/26)

• Olympus Wildcard (6/30/26 - 7/7/26)

• Kings Canyon Wildcard (7/7/26 - 7/14/26)

RANKED

Ranked Ladder

Start Date

End Date

Ranked Ladder 7

7/‌2/‌2026

7/‌5/‌2026

Ranked Ladder 8

7/‌9/‌2026

7/‌12/‌2026

Ranked Ladder 9

7/‌16/‌2026

7/‌19/‌2026

Ranked Ladder 10

7/‌23/‌2026

7/‌26/‌2026

Ranked Ladder 11

7/‌30/‌2026

8/‌2/‌2026

Removing “Champion Squad” Screen

• We have removed the “Champion Squad” screen from the Ranked match start flow.

• You will still see your team on the Your Squad screen then immediately load into the dropship.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed issue where bots would never loot weapons. Bots will now loot weapons a few seconds after landing.

• Fixed the Beam Saber being partially visible while cloaked from Mirage revive

• Deathbox Respawn bug fixes:

  • Players won't get stuck if respawned under low geometry.

  • Deathbox attachment exploit fixed.

  • Hop-up weapons are properly restored when a player is respawned from Deathbox.

• Beacon Respawn bug fixes:

  • Akimbo weapons are restored properly.

WEAPON BUG FIXES

• Fixed issue where the Bocek, Rampage and Sentinel could sometimes not be energized while Infinite Ammo was active.

• Fixed issue where gold shotgun bolts did not properly apply fire rate increase when Double Tap Trigger was enabled.

• C.A.R. Gold magazine now reloads while stowed, as intended

LEGEND BUG FIXES

• Axle’s “Jump Gate” Upgrade now respects the Movement Ability keybind.

• Added proper voicelines for pinging Axle’s abilities in-world.

• Most objects can no longer be attached to Axle’s Kickstart drone.

• Fixed Ballistic Tactical not affecting an enemy if they were hit while healing.

• Fixed an issue with Mad Maggie’s Wrecking Ball bouncing off cloaked enemies without knockback or damage.

• Fixed a bug causing a crash on startup for some PlayStation and Nintendo players, when loading local save data.

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Updated the Bocek’s first person arrow effects.

Maps

• Stormpoint

  • Out of bounds timer now appropriately triggers on 10+ spots across the map.

  • Addressed several collision locations to improve movement and gameplay flow.

  • Adjusted lighting across multiple zones to improve readability.

• World’s Edge

  • Fixed exploits that allowed Alter to access unintended areas using her abilities.

• Kings Canyon

  • Out of bounds timer now appropriately triggers in multiple spots in and around popular POIs.

• E-District

  • Out of bounds timer now appropriately triggers in several spots across popular POIs.

  • Addressed cases where Alter could use her abilities to reach unintended locations.

  • Improved lighting in key areas to improve gameplay readability.

AUDIO

• Deathbox Respawn In-Progress sound increased in volume and audible radius for enemies.

• Adjusted the volume of Fuse’s Mythic skydive trail in response to community feedback.

ENGINE

• Players can no longer hide inside tree bushes, which could be fairly easily done using Revenant wall-climbing skill.

• Better prediction logic around triggers, such as Octane’s jump pads or Horizon’s gravity lifts, reducing misprediction hitches when interacting.

Graphics

• Implemented a fix to address framerate hitching when banners cycle in the world.

• Made adjustments to shadows and highlights on Broken Moon. 

• Decreased bloom intensity on all maps. For people still experiencing issues, we recommend reverting to the default brightness settings (50%).

TL;DR

• “Why wait to tweak Axle?”

• Axle Nerf Details

• Ballistic Refresh

• Pathfinder Buff

• Seer Buff

• Mad Maggie Nerf

• Valkyrie Nerf

• Conduit Nerf

• A New Shotgun Hop-Up, and A Hop Up Shuffle

• Regional Differences in Play

INTRODUCTION

“WHY WAIT TO TWEAK AXLE?”

LEGENDS

AXLE NERF

BALLISTIC REFRESH

Passive

Tactical

Ultimate

Upgrades

PATHFINDER BUFF

Tactical

Ultimate

Upgrades

SEER BUFF

Passive

Tactical

Ultimate

MAD MAGGIE NERF

Tactical

Ultimate

VALKYRIE NERF

CONDUIT NERF

Recent Changes

New Changes

WEAPONS

A NEW SHOTGUN HOP-UP, AND A HOP UP SHUFFLE

REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN PLAY

CONCLUSION

INVESTIGATING: We are continuing to investigate visual and performance issues impacting players using specific PC hardware. -NVIDIA users: To alleviate some of these issues, please update to the newest driver, here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/272764/ -TEMPORARY WORKAROUND: Those experiencing stuttering or FPS drops on PC: Players have reported that switching from the EA App to Steam alleviates the issue in the short term.

Over the past several months, the Anti-Cheat Team team has been developing, testing, and validating a *new* detection system which resulted in identifying and removing 1,000 accounts for using unauthorized software/gameplay enhancements, in its first week alone! These bans also targeted Xim and Titan users, expanding our protection against those cheating devices. 

This detection tool was deployed to the live game after extensive verification to ensure a high degree of accuracy. The 1,000 account marker was hit while being quite conservative with enforcement so we expect this number to grow significantly in the coming weeks as we expand its reach and tune it accordingly. Additionally, we executed a highly focused and targeted ban wave of the top 100 positions on leaderboards for each platform. As a result, you may notice some high profile names missing from the leaderboards. The wave resulted in the following bans:

• Console - 79

• PC - 7

This style of targeted integrity check is executed on a regular cadence as one of the many tools in our anti-cheat toolbelt.

We are still hard at work on more controller cheating detections that we mentioned in previous posts. The system we are building is extensive, requires a substantial number of moving parts, and analysis of large amounts of match data. While it may feel like a slow process to some, we need to be as thorough as possible to provide reliable, accurate detections to reduce the risk of false positives while taking swift action against players who use these devices to cheat. This is not a one-time effort. We will continue monitoring, refining, and expanding our anti-cheat capabilities to stay ahead of emerging threats and help ensure a fair experience for all players.

Thank you to everyone who continues to report suspicious behavior in pursuit of a healthier Apex Legends experience.

We'll have more to share as we continue this work in the coming weeks. 

We just pushed an update for the following:

FIXED:

-"Blind Box" round modifier has been reactivated in the Power Trip event

-Weapons granted during "Red Handed" rounds will no longer remain in death boxes after the round ends

-Solo-queue test disabled and postponed to later in the split, as initially intended

For a fully translated version of the update, see here.

As part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, we’ve been more direct in sharing our approach to developing Apex Legends, a critical part of this approach is listening to you all in the community, understanding their needs, and working to address them. As such, we wanted to highlight the work being done on matchmaking to provide an even better experience for our players.

Below, we’ll be discussing the frustrations we’re consistently working to alleviate, the various changes we’ve made and tests we’ve run, what outcomes we’re targeting, as well as what we’ve learned and how we’re using it to improve matchmaking moving forward. 

Read on to learn all about:

• Five major matchmaking pain points

• Parameters and results of recent matchmaking tests:

  • Increased maximum queue search times

  • Bots in mid-tier unranked lobbies

  • Diamond+ solo-queue only

  • 4.5 Hour Ranked map rotations

  • 1-tier locked Ranked premades

• The challenges of testing

DEFINING MATCHMAKING PAIN POINTS

You have made it clear, and we understand: Long queues and endlessly sweaty matches are the opposite of fun.

We are always listening and talking with players, we hear the feedback and frustration. It’s important that we balance your feedback and match data, so while we’re seeing that the majority of matches are fast and fair, we also see a smaller outlier of unacceptable matches that we’re committed to addressing to improve the overall game experience. Over the past few seasons, we've been focused on what our players are saying and exploring match data to identify a list of five main pain points which we use to guide our work on Matchmaking systems.

Here’s what we've been hearing:

• Queue Times: No one wants to wait forever to get into a match. There is an inherent trade-off between faster queue times and a fairer match, but we also know that no one should have to spend more time in queue than actually playing. We see this frustration amplified in Ranked as it's the mode in which players will wait longer for matches with tighter matchmaking.

• Lobby Skill Disparity: The skill gaps in your matches can be too wide. Veterans and casuals shouldn't be competing in the same lobby. Both Ranked and Unranked matches see the problem of Lobby Skill Disparity, and we approach both modes with different proposed solutions based on differing player needs.

• Solos vs Premade Imbalance: Solo players are at a disadvantage against coordinated three-stacks, especially in Ranked. Communication and coordination are part of the core game loop and bring real advantages, but they shouldn't be that decisive.

• Teammate Quality: You're paired with teammates who don't match your playstyle or skill level.  Inconsistent experiences impact match quality.

• Sweaty Lobbies: No one has fun when every single match feels like it’s your pain and someone else's gain. There is a time and a place for hyper-competitive matches, and you should know when you’re opting into the experience.

Every bullet here touches the core functions of the matchmaker. Pull one lever and everything else shifts along. It’s a tough balancing act. That's why over the past year, we've been methodical about testing solutions and tracking how each adjustment ripples through matchmaking.

RECENT TESTS

Matchmaking tests and experiments are run on specific regional servers to ensure that we can get clear data when we compare against other regions playing during the same period.

Over the past year, we have increased the number of tests, and are planning to continue with a regular cadence moving forward. Here's what we've learned.

TEST: INCREASED MAXIMUM QUEUE SEARCH TIMES

Which pain point are we addressing? Queue Times, Lobby Skill Disparity, Teammate Quality

What was the test? The matchmaker searches, initially, for an opponent of closely-aligned skill level, and incrementally expands the search, loosening the skill restriction over time. For this test, we increased the search window from 30 seconds to 60 seconds before expanding the matchmaking criteria. This gives the matchmaker more time to find fairly-matched players instead of immediately widening the skill range in favour of more quickly filling a lobby.

What were the results? We saw a positive impact on match quality and much fewer skill mismatches, especially at the high end of competition (visualized below), in both Ranked and Unranked without significantly increasing queue times.

What are the next steps? Given the positive results, we implemented this globally on May 7th, 2026 as part of our standard matchmaking logic in Ranked and Unranked Trios. But we are not stopping there. We are continuing to tweak and monitor edge-cases to ensure that no one waits more than the intended maximum queue wait time before getting into a match.

TEST: BOTS IN LOWER-SKILL UNRANKED LOBBIES

Which pain point are we addressing? Queue Times, Lobby Skill Disparity, Teammate Quality

What did we test? 

We enabled bot-fill in mid-tier lobbies of Duos and Pub Trios matches, to understand whether they improved matchmaking quality and overall player experience. As a reminder: there are no plans to add bots to Ranked, and bots do not fill an empty spot on your squad.

What were the results?

Being able to add a small number of bots to lower-skill matches is very positive for matchmaking quality. During off-hours, bots enable us to create fair matches within a reasonable amount of time and reduce how often we have to bring high skill players into a skill-mismatch situation. However, bots are still a work in progress and they can only be added to lobbies where they participate meaningfully. Outside the new player or lower-skill lobbies, they struggle to keep up and cause the match experience to deteriorate and thus we remain dedicated to improving bot behaviours.

What are the next steps? 

We will continue to invest in our bots and slowly roll them out to situations where they create a positive player experience. Today, bots have a key role to play in the extended onboarding experience, especially as players learn the games through live matches, and to help facilitate improved matchmaking in situations where we, otherwise, would have had to create very wide matches. 

TEST: DIAMOND + SOLO-QUEUE ONLY 

Which pain point are we addressing? Solos vs Premade Imbalance, Lobby Skill Disparity

What is the test? Later on in Season 29, in all regions, Ranked will be solo-queue only for all players Diamond and above. If you’re Diamond or higher, you won’t be able to squad up as a premade in Ranked. Everyone plays with new friends - no exceptions.

Why are we doing this? We see clear frustration amongst Diamond+ players stemming from the imbalance between solo and premade squads, and this is one of the most requested solutions. This constraint should level the playing field and allow everyone to compete, relying only on their own skill and two new squadmates. As a result, lobbies will be more evenly matched and players can trust that they have the same opportunity to win as every other squad in their match. 

The trade-off we’re making. Playing with friends is a core part of Apex. We understand that this test removes that core tenet from Ranked play at the highest tiers, and we know that will sting for players who queue together. With this test, we are prioritizing fairness first as the constraint to understand how it affects matchmaking improvements. We’re measuring whether the fairness gain is worth it, and we’re prepared to hear candid feedback either way. Ultimately, this is just one test to address these pain points; if the test results don't point to this being a long-term solution, we'll evaluate our other approaches to solve this issue.  

Playing with friends is a key driver of social connection and long-term retention. That said, even highly social players spend a substantial amount of time playing solo. As a result, the solo queue experience cannot be treated as secondary; it is a critical part of the overall player experience, including for our most engaged users.

The data backing this. It is in Diamond+ that the feedback is the loudest, and our data supports it. Players who play most of their games as a premade squad do make it to the highest tiers at the fastest pace. In matches above Diamond, we also see the largest performance disparity between solo players and premade squads. A three-stack where all players are equally-high skilled is likely to significantly outperform everyone else. The coordination advantage is real. 

What we’re watching. Community sentiment and match data. We want to know if leveling the playing field does improve the overall experience and improves the integrity of Ranked at the top end. This is a two-week window to learn before we decide what’s next.

Why not just split the queues? Splitting queues between solos and premades introduces more issues than it solves. Player populations get fractured into smaller pools, creating longer queue times or much wider matches for everyone. As an oversimplified example: if we split the matchmaking pool and it splits right down the middle, there are 50% fewer players loading into each version of Ranked, meaning that, best case scenario, wait times for each subset will increase 50% and match quality will suffer.

One queue with a solo-only constraint keeps the player base intact and queue times reasonable. While we’re testing this option to “level the playing field”, we will continue to thoroughly analyze data and sentiment to understand the broader impact of the change before evaluating a more permanent solution.

TEST: 4.5-HOUR RANKED MAP ROTATIONS

Which pain point are we addressing? General QOL improvement

What did we test? We shortened the map rotation in Ranked from 24 hours to 4.5 hours. 

Why did we test this? This was mainly a functionality test where we validated that there was no unforeseen negative impact to players or internal systems. We also wanted to understand how the Ranked community would react to being able to play more maps in Ranked during their own normal play schedule over the course of a split.

What were the results? 

All clear! Systems were healthy, we saw a greater number of players over a week being able to play on more maps and the community chatter was positive.

What are the next steps? 

This is now Ranked for everyone. Moving forward, we may continue testing out different rotation schedules to get the best mix of freshness and familiarity.

ACTIVE TEST: 1-TIER LOCKED RANKED PREMADES

Which pain point are we addressing? Lobby Skill Disparity

What did we test? 

Our data shows that Platinum players matching up with Masters is driven primarily by players squadding-up and bringing those wide skill band squads to a lobby. Players often report those pre-match tier distribution graphs with frustration and confusion. As a result, we limited squad-ups to 1 tier above or below your rank, instead of 2, to see if we can create better matches for all.

This test is currently active at the time of writing, we will follow up with the results when we have them!

THE CHALLENGES OF TESTING

With the deliberate focus on testing matchmaking parameters, sometimes things get broken along the way. It’s a rare and unfortunate outcome, and something we work hard to learn from to ensure we don’t repeat our mistakes.

For example, the day of Overclocked’s launch we experienced a matchmaking outage that lasted several hours. We moved too fast, made last-minute changes, missed a crucial bug, and, as a result, the outage impacted our entire playerbase - which is frankly unacceptable.

So what are we doing differently moving forward?

• Process enforcement: We are demanding stricter adherence to our change‑management workflow.

• Technical safeguards: We are implementing automatic mechanisms to release queue pressure automatically, so that future failures can be recovered more gracefully and faster.

When something breaks and takes the game offline, the team bands together to resolve it as quickly as possible. When matchmaking systems crash, more and more players accumulate in the queue; if the queue cannot be cleared by loading into matches, it continues to grow, and once it reaches a certain size it overloads the database. To get the game back online, our team had to manually clear the queue and then gradually re‑introduce players at a reduced capacity, starting with 10 % of the usual queue and expanding slowly.

Only after sufficient pressure was relieved from the matchmaking queue were we able to restore normal service.`

CONCLUSION

We hope this furthers our transparency surrounding our matchmaking test processes. It is a complicated space to get right, as it requires a delicate balance and rigorous ongoing testing. We will continue to test and iterate, and will communicate with you each step of the way. We have more we’re excited to share with you about Matchmaking and Ranked in the coming months, so stay tuned!