Apex Legends streamer gets banned mid-stream for hacking

Olivia Richman Published 24/04/2019

For some reason, Apex Legends streamer Entzy wanted it to be very obvious that he was cheating.

Not only could viewers see several in-game cheats from his point of view, but they could hear him chatting casually about cheating. Oh, and the YouTube video of the stream was titled, “Entzy | CHEATING ON APEX.”

The in-game cheat that Entzy was using in this strange stunt appeared to be an auto-aiming tool. He was able to see rectangular boxes around each enemy’s head and he seemed to have the ability to instantly lock onto these hitboxes.

Meanwhile, Entzy chatted with people on his Discord server about the differences between “hacking” and “cheating.”

After winning a game with this the auto-aim hack/cheat, Entzy’s account was banned before a second game could even load out.

“I guess I’ll just log into another account,” he said.

Entzy added that he had been hoping it would happen quicker. The ban seemed to have taken longer than he thought.

The hacker soon realized that his other accounts were also banned. At this point, Entzy just ended the stream.

Why cheat during a live stream?

Checking out Entzy’s YouTube stream, he apparantly was able to play for two whole hours before being banned. Entzy was able to host a stream called “CHEATING ON APEX” for the entirety of two hours before facing repercussions.

While this could just be a stunt for attention, it’s possible that Entzy was sending a message to Respawn Entertainment and the Apex community: The game needs better anti-cheat tools.

At the beginning of March, hackers realized they could easily render Bangalor useless with an anti-smoke cheat. When streamer Lucas “Mendokusaii” Hakansson realized that develeoper Respawn Entertainment was not taking any immediate action in response to this game-breaking effect, he made a video exploiting it.

In the video, Mendokusaii said he was attempting to help the competitive community remain clean and competitive. He hoped the YouTube video would alarm Respawn into fixing the problem, since his direct emails had allegedly been ignored.

Being a free-to-play title often opens up games to a potential influx of hackers, and Apex Legends is unfortunately no exception. Near the end of March, Respawn addressed this issue with a much-needed in-game report system. In a few days, the game developer informed its users that 500,000 accounts had already been removed from the game’s servers.

While Respawn seems to be attempting to keep up with the hundreds of thousands of hackers and cheaters, Entzy may have been trying to send a message: It’s still not working.

It’s unclear if the game developers will respond, or if they are currently working on some more effective anti-cheat systems for future patches.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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