A huge controversy has just rocked the community of Apex Legends, the multiplayer shooter from Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. Last weekend, an official tournament was held with a prize of 5 million dollars, but, in the middle of one of the matches, two professional competitors were hacked by someone who activated cheating tools. After several days, the person responsible came to light and confessed that he did it to send an important message to Respawn.
What happened in the Apex Legends million-dollar tournament?
Apex Legends world champion Genburten was able to capture the whole thing on his stream and then uploaded the clip to his Twitter account. He was in the middle of a game in the Apex Legends Global Series tournament when he suddenly lost complete control of his game, and even started to see all the other players through the walls, something that can only be done through hacks that activate illegal cheats.
Genburten noticed and immediately started exclaiming, “I’m being hacked!” to warn all the spectators. For a brief moment what appears to be a cheat tool menu titled TSM HALAL HOOK appears on the screen and a message can even be seen in the chat that reads, “The Apex global hacking series, by Destroyer2009 and R4andom.”
And that wasn’t all, because another professional Apex Legends player known as ImperialHal was also hacked in the middle of a game, in which Aimbot, a tool that allows a player to automatically shoot enemies without having to aim, was activated. These situations are particularly interesting, because the hackers were forcing tournament participants to use infamous cheat tools that would normally get them kicked out of the competition. As expected, all of this led to Respawn suspending and postponing the tournament, because “the competitive integrity of the game had been compromised.“
But then… Who was responsible for all this, and why did he do it? The TechCrunch site had the opportunity to speak with Destroyer2009, who admitted to being one of the hackers involved. In addition to taking full responsibility for the incidents, he explained that he did it for two reasons: For fun and, more importantly, to send Respawn a message and force them to fix the vulnerability in Apex Legends that allowed him to do all this in the first place.
Destroyer2009 would not go into detail about how he carried out the Apex Legends Global Series hacks, but clarified that he never officially reported it because neither Respawn nor Electronic Arts has a bounty program that offers monetary remuneration to hackers and researchers who find vulnerabilities like this. According to Destroyer2009, they know exactly how to fix it without the need to be reported and that this was just a warning so that it doesn’t escalate.
All of this is of vital importance, as these incidents rocked the entire community, with several professional players and content creators claiming that it is no longer safe to play Apex Legends and that everyone was at risk of being hacked, not just those who participated in the tournament. The official Respawn team then made a statement on Twitter, where they assured that the safety of their players is their top priority and that they already carried out updates to create a safer experience for everyone. At the end of the day, it seems that Destroyer2009’s unconventional methods served to improve the game.
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