Respawn is "investigating what happened" after nerfing smoke cover in Apex Legends
"The goal was to have it look identical to before, but that's not what happened."
Apex Legends developer Respawn has acknowledged there's a problem with Legends Bangalore and Caustic after a recent patch essentially nerfed the soldiers' smoke abilities.
When Chaos Theory was rolled out, the team made changes to the particle FX count for Legends that obscure the battlefield with smoke, making it easier for players to see through - and, perhaps more importantly, shoot - their enemies.
It's a big issue for Bangalore, Caustic, and Gibraltar in particular, as these characters rely on the cover of smoke to support their teammates.
"We're investigating what happened here," acknowledged lead game designer, Daniel Klein, responding to questions on the game's official subreddit page (thanks, Dexerto). "There was a change to the underlying VFX that we made with optimisation in mind. The goal was to have it look identical to what was there before, but apparently that's not what happened.
"We'll let you know when we know more."
Klein didn't give a timescale, but players are hoping a fix comes sooner rather than later.
ICYMI, Apex Legends recently hit an all-new concurrent user peak on Steam. The free-to-play battle royale game - which released on Steam in November 2020 after almost 18-months as an EA Origin exclusive - hit 198,235 simultaneous players on Steam just a couple of weeks back, its highest ever concurrent user peak.
The recent surge in new and returning players checking out Season 8 means Apex Legends saw the shooter peak as the fifth most-played game on Steam, making it more popular than GTA 5, Rainbow Six Siege, and Team Fortress 2 on PC.
It was also in the top ten of most-watched games on Twitch, which meant more people were tuning in to watch Apex Legends than FIFA 21, CS:GO, and Valheim at the time.