If you’ve ever dropped into World’s Edge only to get one-shot by a player across the map who didn’t even aim down sights, you’ve probably wondered how bad is cheating in Apex Legends. For casual players queuing up for a quick match after work and ranked grinders pushing for Predator alike, unfair play has been a persistent point of frustration since the game launched in 2019. I’ve spent over 1,200 hours playing across all platforms, and I’ve seen the issue shift and evolve as Respawn rolls out new anti-cheat tools and hackers find new workarounds. This post breaks down the real scope of the problem, who it impacts most, and what you can do if you run into a cheater in your lobby.
How Bad Is Cheating in Apex Legends Across Different Play Modes?
The severity of the cheating problem varies wildly depending on what you’re playing and what platform you’re using. PC lobbies have far higher cheat rates than console or Switch lobbies, for example, since PC is far easier to install unauthorized software on without platform restrictions. Ranked lobbies above Diamond have the highest reported cheat rates, according to recent community surveys, with around 18% of PC ranked players saying they encountered a confirmed cheater in their last 10 matches.
For example, I was grinding for Master rank last split and ran into three separate aimbot users in one night of playing, all in Diamond lobbies. I didn’t run into a single cheater the entire month I was playing casual duos with my little brother, though, so the difference is really stark. Casual playlists only have a reported 7% cheat rate, since most cheaters don’t bother wasting their tools on unranked lobbies where they have nothing to gain.
Console players aren’t fully immune, either. Cronus Zen and other hardware modification tools are increasingly common in higher-ranked console lobbies, since they don’t require any software installation to give players an unfair edge. These tools are far harder to detect than traditional PC hacks, so they often fly under the radar for months before Respawn can roll out detection for specific scripts.
The Most Common Types of Hacks Plaguing Apex Lobbies
Cheaters don’t all use the same tools, and some are far more obvious than others. From my own experience and reports from the official Apex Legends subreddit, the most widespread hacks right now are:
- Aimbot: The most well-known cheat, which automatically locks onto enemy heads or hitboxes, even if the player is facing the wrong direction or moving at full speed. Many aimbots can be adjusted to look "legit" to avoid detection, making them hard to report accurately.
- Wallhacks: This cheat lets users see enemy positions, health bars, and even loot through walls, terrain, and buildings. It’s often harder to spot than aimbot, since cheaters can pretend they’re just using good map awareness to track opponents.
- Speed/flight hacks: Less common but extremely disruptive, these hacks let players move faster than normal, fly across the map, or even teleport to avoid damage or catch enemies off guard. These are almost always easy to spot and get banned quickly.
- Cronus Zen scripts: A common console cheat, this hardware tool modifies controller input to give users perfect recoil control, auto-aim adjustments, and faster movement without needing to install software on their console. These are far harder for anti-cheat to detect than traditional PC hacks.
Many low-level cheaters pay $5 to $20 a month for pre-made cheat packages, while more advanced users pay for private, undetectable hacks that can avoid anti-cheat detection for months at a time. That means even when Respawn bans thousands of accounts in a single wave, many cheaters just make new accounts or switch to a new undetectable hack to get back into lobbies. Some cheaters even sell leveled-up, ready-to-use accounts to other hackers, so they don’t have to grind through low-level lobbies before they can get into high-ranked play.
What Respawn Is Doing to Fight Unfair Play
Respawn has invested heavily in anti-cheat tools over the past few years, and the results are starting to show. Respawn bans an average of 400,000 cheaters every quarter, and they issue hardware bans for repeat offenders so cheaters can’t just make a new account on the same PC to get back into lobbies. They use Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), a kernel-level anti-cheat tool that scans your PC for unauthorized software running while Apex is open, and they add new detection signatures for new hacks every few days.
But hardware bans don’t stop cheaters who are willing to buy cheap second-hand PCs to keep hacking, so the cycle never fully stops. That’s why Respawn also has teams dedicated to taking down cheat seller websites and Discord servers, which cuts off access to the tools at the source. They also use behavioral detection tools that flag accounts with unusual gameplay stats, like a 90% headshot rate across 20 matches, even if EAC doesn’t detect any cheat software running on the user’s device.
I’ve reported dozens of obvious cheaters over the years, and I get a notification that they were banned around 60% of the time, which is way higher than it was just two years ago. The biggest gap right now is console hardware cheats, but Respawn has said they’re working with Sony and Microsoft to add better detection for modified controller inputs in the future. They also rolled out a feature last year that lets you see if a player you reported was banned, which makes the reporting process feel a lot more rewarding.
What You Can Do If You Encounter a Cheater
Running into a cheater can ruin an entire hour of gameplay, especially if you were about to win a ranked match or complete a difficult challenge. There are a few simple steps you can take to help get them banned faster, and make the game better for everyone else. Always report suspected cheaters through the in-game tool first, don’t just post about them on social media, because in-game reports attach full match data that Respawn can use to confirm cheating behavior far faster than a screenshot or clip on Twitter.
If you’re in a premade squad, have all your teammates report the same player to flag the account for priority review. Accounts with multiple reports from different players in the same match get reviewed far faster than accounts with only one report. Don’t engage with the cheater in text or voice chat, either. Most cheaters are just looking for attention, and insulting them will only encourage them to keep ruining lobbies for other people.
If you’re playing ranked and run into multiple cheaters in a row, consider taking a break for a few hours. Cheaters often cluster in lobbies at certain times of day, like late nights on weekends when fewer anti-cheat updates are rolled out. Never download third-party "Apex optimization tools" that aren’t from official sources, either. Many of these tools have hidden cheat software bundled in, and you can get your account permanently banned even if you never intended to use cheats. If you play on console, you can still report suspected Cronus users through the in-game tool, since Respawn tracks input data to spot unusual controller behavior that doesn’t match normal human input.
At the end of the day, how bad is cheating in Apex Legends depends a lot on what platform you play on and what modes you queue into, but it’s far from the unplayable mess some people make it out to be. Respawn is investing more resources into anti-cheat every year, and the vast majority of lobbies are still full of fair players just looking to have a good time. If you do run into a cheater, taking 30 seconds to report them helps make the game better for everyone else, and you’ll usually get a confirmation that the account was banned down the line. No competitive game will ever be 100% free of cheaters, but the community and dev team working together makes a huge difference in keeping lobbies fair for casual and competitive players alike.