The world of e-sports is moving at a fast pace, with hundreds of tournaments of games for Apex Legends, Fortnite, Valorant, and many more happening every single year. These tournaments allow gamers to shine in what they excel the best in, often for a large cash prize awaiting at the end for the winner.
Furthermore, bearing in mind how millions of people tune in to watch these tournaments as entertainment as well as how this is the only chance for gamers to express their talents, cheating is a frowned-upon practice in the field. And despite being shamed, it occurs occasionally even in the highest levels of competitions, and a similar event has happened in the Apex Legends North American Pro League Finals.
Apex Legends Pro Players Get Hacked During Final Stages Of A Tournament
As stated before, the malicious attempt at ruining the integrity of the event happened in the later stages of the tournament, when the accounts of two professional players, Genburten and ImperialHal were hacked.
It was initially Genburten, from DarkZero Esports, that was targeted by the hackers. He was able to notice a change in his user interface as well as the wall hacks, allowing him to locate enemies through walls. He was additionally given aimbot as well, prompting the admins at the event to reset that particular game.
The hackers also shared a message in the lobby using Genburten’s account, stating “Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom”. The hackers essentially revealed their identity, a tactic most often used to taunt the ones affected.
Management And Fans’ Reaction To Apex Legends Professional Tournament Getting Hacked
The admins of the servers were forced to shut it down due to the breach of security and integrity of the servers being used in the event, with the official Twitter account for the game announcing how the event has been postponed indefinitely. There were many fans raising questions and sharing their critique about the incident on social media, with some of them being as follows-
Multiple Apex Legends pro players had their accounts hacked mid-match of the Apex Legends esports finals and had cheats show up on their account pic.twitter.com/dt9UDgZYmZ
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) March 18, 2024
For everyone that is saying that these professionals are ‘cheating’ you’re incredibly silly.
— Nati (@NatiTTV) March 18, 2024
Both Hal and Genburten (both that were hacked) have won multiple LAN tournaments where it’s impossible to cheat.
Also, the hacker spammed his name in the left box and he’s been…
Or they were cheating the whole time
— ViolentFights (@ViolentFight) March 18, 2024
Idk if I’m just getting older or what but why do hackers think this is even remotely funny or cool in any way?
— Macaiyla (@macaiyla) March 18, 2024
Esports integrity on Apex is going to be hurt forever
— Jesus Martinez (@0xJesusMartinez) March 18, 2024
Anti-cheats have to be #1 priority in this day & age
Despite the game celebrating its 5th anniversary recently, it seems like there is still a long way to go when it comes to maintaining a fair and safe environment for professional players to play Apex Legends. The stepping stone to being with would most definitely be putting in place a solid anti-cheat system, something to the likes of Valorant‘s Vanguard, renowned for its anti-cheat detection.
Apex Legends is available to play on Steam.
