The release of Apex Legends has been a rather impressive one as far as online games are concerned. Even though it just seemingly popped up out of nowhere without any prior announcement at all, Apex has not encountered many problems nor had many barriers to play. For the most part, the game runs just fine without the server or connection issues that online games often have at launch.
That said, there is one thing that has apparently had a negative impact on the experience of Apex players, especially those that play on PC, and that's crashing. The game will often crash during the middle of a match. This could possibly be because of issues with stability or graphics, or it could be the result of a connection loss. Many people have taken to forums to share their troubles and try to find a solution, but the issue still happens pretty frequently, which is concerning.
Right now, it's not very clear what the cause behind these crashes is or how they can be prevented, which has led to a lot of frustration among players. After all, nothing feels worse than getting ready for the final encounter of a match, only to have one squad member crashing and end up fighting at a man disadvantage.
This is easily one of the most critical issues this new game is facing. Developer Respawn Entertainment has stated that it is working on a solution for this, and things appear to be improving. Since the latest update arrived on Apex, players tend to be able to recover more often if the match drags on long enough, rather than just disappearing altogether after crashing. Still, crashes occur at a relatively high frequency, and they can completely ruin a match.
There is a new feature that Respawn could add to Apex Legends to help mitigate the issue while it tries to find a fix: Allowing disconnected players to rejoin matches. This quality-of-life feature is already present in many other shooters games such as Overwatch and PUBG, and it is incredibly useful and makes for a nice improvement when something goes wrong with the connection.
For starter, letting players who get kicked out of games return would make it a lot easier to deal with crashes. It would also greatly improve the experience for those who have to suffer through these issues even though it’s not their fault. Furthermore, this idea feels compatible with one of the innovations that Respawn has made to the battle royale formula as well. Apex Legends already has a mechanic that allows a squad to resurrect an eliminated teammate, so being able to reconnect to a match you dropped from because of an error on the game’s side goes along with that line of thought too.
In fact, the respawn mechanic could be a workaround if the developer thinks that directly letting players reconnect would lead to it being exploited to gain unfair advantages. If crashed players can't just pick it up right where they left off, Respawn could allow their teammates to retrieve their banners to bring them back later. That way, teams still stand a chance even if a member got crashed, but there’s no worry that players will use this feature to cheat.
Of course, the most effective and direct solution would be for Respawn to figure out what the cause behind the issue is and fix it, or suggest ways that players can configure their systems to minimize the risk. But since that probably cannot be done overnight, having the ability to reconnect to matches would at least help. It's a temporary solution that Respawn could add immediately to make Apex Legends more fun for those who take winning seriously.
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