A budding Apex Legends streamer panicked when it appeared he might have used an aimbot to rack up easy kills during an online tournament.
The fight was moving along ordinarily for Otto “ottr” Boström, but things quickly turned sketchy. His crosshairs immediately snapped directly to the head of an opponent’s teammate for an instant kill.
Not helping relieve himself of guilt, ottr appeared flustered as the thought of forever being labeled a cheater raced to mind. He then asked viewers not to save a clip of the ordeal.
Sudden movements leading to an accurate kill shot are classic signs of cheating, but Respawn Entertainment has chimed in to confirm the glitch as a game bug.Â
It so happens that shooting downward from that area of the map consistently triggers the same result, just as the player featured in this clip was able to reproduce. For ottr, having a target in the perfect spot was a stroke of pure luck.
Commenting on his reaction, ottr clarified.
“Some people raised concerns about my reaction and my alt-tabbing. I react like that all the time when [something suspicious happens],” ottr said.
Respawn lifted the temporary ban it placed on ottr after realizing he wasn’t at fault.
Developers of competitive shooters are no strangers to the constant threat of cheaters. Whether it’s aimbotting or the XIM-enabled keyboard and mouse users on console platforms, there are always issues that developers must combat in order to maintain a level playing field for players.
Even with tools like anti-cheat, dishonest players will always find new ways to gain unfair advantages. The most a developer can do is fix in-game exploits as they arise and take aggressive action against those bending the rules.
It’s not uncommon for players to receive unjust bans like this when their actions are called into question, and not all of them are lucky enough to win their appeals. It can be appreciated that Respawn has enough awareness to right a wrong the developer was itself responsible for, and though the bug is hard to use advantageously, it’s likely best if this one gets a quick fix.
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