Apex Legends removes Arenas abandon penalties due to bugs

Respawn Entertainment recently updated Apex Legends with a leaving penalty for the game’s new Arenas mode. 

When games are full, players will get penalized for leaving matches. Players in a party with the match leaver will also face consequences similar to the penalty in Apex Legend’s battle royale ranked games. While this initially seemed like a positive quality of life change for the game, Apex Legends players had a variety of complaints about the change. 

One of the most common complaints came from Apex Legends players who reported 10-minute abandon penalties when they left Arenas matches once they were already finished. In response, Respawn developers stated that they were “investigating” the issue. But as complaints continued, Respawn has decided to temporarily disable the leaving penalty altogether. 

According to director of communications Ryan Rigney, the problem kept happening due to “game logic” after everyone on the opposing team in Arenas left the match. Since developers have discovered why players are getting falsely penalized, a solution is well underway. 

“The fix for this is scheduled for later this week. So we’ll let you know when we’ve solved the problem and restored penalties,” Respawn tweeted. 

There have been other complaints regarding leaving penalties in Arenas outside of the bug. Fans ranted on Twitter about being stuck with terrible teammates in Arenas and being forced to play out the game with them to avoid being punished. Others noted that unranked games shouldn’t have penalties for leaving to begin with. Instead, players wanted developers to focus on other in-game issues like weapon balancing.