Apex Legends News

[p]Hey, legends! The Battle Pass and Ranked reset goes live on December 16, 2025. Our mid-season update will follow in early January 2026. This timing is a bit different from our usual schedule, so we wanted to give you an early heads-up.[/p]

[h2]Merry Mayhem Event
[/h2][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]Feel the holiday rush in the Merry Mayhem Event![/p][p]This event is a festive firefight: we’ve got a winter Olympus, Guarded Airdrops full of Mythic loot protected by heavily-armed Spectres and new ice-cold Wild Cards for you.[/p][p]The Merry Mayhem Event runs from December 16 to January 6.[/p][h2]WILDCARD: WINTER OLYMPUS[/h2][p][/p][p]Olympus gets the full holiday treatment in Wildcard. Inside this snowglobe is a frozen battlefield stuffed with winter decorations and EVO Orbs that'll make you feel the festive spirit.[/p][p][/p][h2]WILDCARD: GUARDED AIRDROPS[/h2][p][/p][p]Guarded Airdrops turn Wildcard into a holiday free-for-all: each Airdrop hits the ground with a squad of hostile Spectres guarding the best loot. [/p][p]Fight your way through a squad of hostile Spectres (and anyone else who’s crashed the holiday party) to claim powerful Mythic weapons from previous seasons:[/p]

• [p]Kraber: This powerful .50cal bolt-action sniper rifle comes with a variable 6-10x optic, devastating at long range.[/p]
• [p]Power Sword: This special melee weapon is making a comeback! Block attacks and charge the lethal Ultimate.[/p]
• [p]Vermilion R-301: This R-301 is a killing machine, with higher crit chance and it drops a thermite on your enemy on knock. [/p]
• [p]Hornet R-301: This R-301 amps up your speed and mobility, boosting movement, reload speed, and grants a Tactical and Ultimate charge on knock for you and your allies.[/p]
• [p]Grand Slam Bat: This bat packs a huge knockback to send your enemies flying.[/p]
• [p]Road Rage Flatline: This brutal assault rifle turns knocked enemies into time bombs, and every 5th bullet does double damage and unleashes an AOE blast.[/p]

[p]Clear the guards, crack the crate, and spread the kind of holiday cheer you can only get from high-tier gear.[/p][p][/p][h2]NEW WILD CARDS[/h2][p]Bundle up, Legends, it's cold out there! These new winter Wild Cards will turn you into an ice-cold killer:[/p]

• [p]Flash Freeze: Silence enemy abilities on shield break [/p]
• [p]Do-Over: Get a free self-revive when teammates score a knockdown[/p]
• [p]Super Cells: Fully charge your shield with a single Shield Cell[/p]

[p]And these Wild Cards are staying in rotation:[/p]

• [p]Personal Space: Melee knockback is increased[/p]
• [p]Hard Hitter: Melee damage is increased[/p]
• [p]Wall Runner: Gain the ability to Wall-Run [/p]
• [p]Extra Ordnance: The player gains the ability to carry +1 Ordnance[/p]
• [p]Down Bad: Enemies explode when knocked[/p]
• [p]Drain Gain: Recover health when dealing damage to enemies[/p]
• [p]Chain Reaction: Damage is chained to additional enemies within an affected area[/p]

[h2]WEEKLY CHALLENGES[/h2][p]Earn rewards throughout the event by completing weekly event challenges, including an Amped Seasonal Pack, a Holo-Day Pack, and Rare Apex Packs.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]HOLO-DAY BASH STORE[/h2][p][/p][p]Ready for more holiday shopping? The Holo-day Bash Store has some classic winter-themed Legendary skins: become the bear with Gibraltar's Brudda Bear and Pandamonium skins, spread joy with Pathfinder's Joyfinder skin, lead the reindeer slay with Octane’s Dasher skin, and more.[/p][h2]UPCOMING KEY DATES[/h2]

• [p]Battle Pass Split 2 (starts December 16, 2025)[/p]
• [p]Ranked Split 2 (starts December 16, 2025)[/p]
• [p]Amped Mid-Season Update (January 6, 2026)[/p]

[h2]PATCH NOTES: RECENT UPDATES & FIXES[/h2][p]Here are some updates and fixes from our most recent and upcoming patches:[/p]

• [p]Fixed a blue lighting tint issue on World's Edge[/p]
• [p]Restored several missing ziplines across Broken Moon[/p]
• [p]Adjusted Rampart Package and Mythic Bin map icons to be more visible for the Supersonic Event[/p]
• [p]Fixed server crashes when opening packs + entering a match[/p]
• [p]Corrected a Superglide bug that will now allow you to Mantle Boost over obstacles while crouched[/p]
• [p]The Bird of Prey Care Package will now spawn later in-game and less frequently[/p]
• [p]The missile recharge time on the Bird of Prey has been increased to reduce the overall lethality of the weapon[/p]
• [p]Emotes will no longer lock players' gameplay mechanics when are performed with Mythic R-99 Bird of Prey selected[/p]

[h2]ON OUR RADAR[/h2][p]Here’s a couple of the open issues that we’ve seen some community chatter around that are currently being worked on. Stay up to date with our progress on these issues and more on our public Trello board.[/p]

• [p]High CPU usage: Some players are experiencing unusually high CPU usage[/p]
  • [p]Potential fix: For PC players with Nvidia GPUs who are experiencing performance issues, please try updating to the latest hotfix driver version. (This may also be tied to a recent Windows update)[/p]
• [p]Performance issues on new Olympus: Some PC players are reporting various performance issues when standing close to the edge of the map and looking towards the middle of the map.[/p]
• [p]Caustic’s traps: Caustic's traps are triggering his other traps[/p]

[p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][p]Play Apex Legends™ for free* now on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch™, and PC via the EA app, Epic, and Steam.[/p][p]Follow Apex Legends™ on X, Instagram, TikTok, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out our forums.[/p][p]Sign up for our newsletter today to receive the latest Apex Legends™ news, updates, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive offers, and more (including other EA news, products, events, and promotions) by email.[/p][p]This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible. For more information, please refer to EA’s Online Service Updates at [/p][p]https://www.ea.com/service-updates[/p][p].[/p][p]*Applicable platform account and platform subscription (sold separately) may be required. A persistent internet connection and EA account required. Age restrictions apply. Includes in-game purchases.[/p][p]†Not available in all territories.[/p]

[p]Hey Legends!
[/p][p]We’ll be answering as many Legend meta questions as possible this Wednesday, December 10, 2025, at 10 am PT. Drop your questions here ahead of our AMA and tune back for replies when we go live. As always, feedback is also welcome and we’ll be collecting everything to share with the team.
[/p][p]Here’s our team on deck:[/p][p]RSPN_Josh, Lead Game Designer[/p][p]RSPN_Berryhill, Game Designer
[/p][p]Reminder: Please keep your questions focused on Legends / Legend meta. Please limit comments to 1-2 related questions - you can always send more replies! If you’ve got off topic questions, let us know which AMA we should host next.
[/p][p]Chat soon![/p]

[h2]INTRO[/h2][p]Hi legends, welcome to our Anti-Cheat data share following Season 26! Our team is constantly dedicated to maintaining and improving competitive integrity in Apex Legends and this blog exists to provide additional transparency and share the ongoing work we're doing. This data share will not represent all of our team’s work as we are somewhat limited in what we can share as we do not want to tip off cheat-makers; there are always more initiatives happening behind the scenes. 
[/p][h2]WHAT’S NEW[/h2][p]In Season 26, our Anti-Cheat team rolled out a new bot detection model. In collaboration with Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), we also deployed a new detection that expands on Direct Memory Access (DMA) detections for various cheat vendors. We believe these two additions will help curb the account selling market as we make things more challenging for bad actors to buy pre-levelled accounts. This should lead to a decrease in cheaters found in-game and an increase to the overall health of our game.[/p][p]Additionally, our team made strides in identifying and banning various compromised handheld consoles that were modded to run cheats.[/p][p]Let’s dive into the data! Take a look at the line graph and the table below and then read on as we break down the information.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]INFECTION RATES[/h2][p]Match Infection Rate (MIR) is the percentage of total matches that includes a cheater and it only takes one cheater in a match of 60 people to mark the match as “infected”. For more information about MIRs, please refer to our Anti-Cheat blog from last season.[/p][p]Let’s look at the MIR on PC first. As you can see from the table above, Season 26’s launch had the lowest MIR since we began measurement at 5.8%. And, while we saw the typical increase during the Split, the S26 Split was still below others measured. [/p][p]On consoles, you will notice a slight uptick at the start of the most recent split. But when looking at the line graph, you’ll see that, despite the increase, the number is still quite low overall. We are also focused on improving our detection models to better identify unauthorized peripherals. This is critical to us as we drive towards continued positive impact on the console MIR, and an overall better experience for console players.[/p][p]Overall, this is a metric where a lower number is always better and we’ll always be chasing further reduction.  We still have work to do to bring this number down as much as possible and will continue to communicate our progress. 
[/p][h2]BANS[/h2][p]Our team continues to target cheaters with drive and dedication in each and every split. In Season 26 alone we banned over 92,000 accounts for a variety of reasons including botting, cheating or abusing exploits.[/p][p]A quick note about our ban process: Typically, we issue a 24-hour ban as a quick, actionable way to remove a suspicious account from the ecosystem. The Anti-Cheat team then completes a thorough investigation and decides if a more serious (or permanent) ban is warranted. This is why sometimes problematic accounts seemingly only get a short-term ban initially; it’s often a temporary solution while the Anti-Cheat team completes their analysis. A more severe ban may follow, depending on the details.
[/p][h2]REPORTS PER USER[/h2][p]We’re happy to share that Reports Per User on console in the most recent split are the lowest they’ve been in recent seasons! We are attributing this dip to improvements made to our detection models which have led to more efficient targeting of teaming and bots. Mid-season, we deployed our next-generation bot detection model and banned more than 1,000 accounts in the first 2 weeks. Typically we see an increase in RPU at the split, but because of reduction in bot reports we actually saw a decrease compared to season launch and the lowest split value since we began measurement. 
[/p][h2]PROTECTING YOUR EA ACCOUNT[/h2][p]We've recently seen a few high-profile cases of compromised accounts. Our support team has been able to get these accounts back to their owners. As a reminder, there are a few steps you can take to protect your EA Account.[/p]

• [p]Turn on two-factor authentication (follow the steps here)[/p]
• [p]Never reuse passwords across different websites[/p]
• [p]Be cautious about the information you share online[/p]

[p]For more help, read our guide to keeping your EA Account safe.
[/p][h2]LOOKING TO THE FUTURE[/h2][p]We remain dedicated to sharing Anti-Cheat information as frequently as we can with as much transparency as possible without showing our hand to cheat makers and bad actors. Thank you for reading and we’ll chat more about Anti-Cheat soon![/p][p]
[/p]

[p][/p][p]Give your gear an extra sparkle with the Apex Legends™ Gold Topper Weapon Charm, available with your EA Play Membership! Launch Apex Legends from December 2-January 5, and it will be auto-granted.[/p][p]Apex Legends™ on Steam[/p][p][/p]