No Apex August has the opposite effect, as Apex Legends sets new player records

It’s August, and a certain segment of the Apex Legends fan base hasn’t exactly seen what it was hoping to see this month. A movement called No Apex August was built on Reddit and social media in response to a wave of technical issues and bugs that swept over the battle royale shooter during the spring. A lot of those bugs have since been squashed, and Apex Legends has actually seen record numbers.

As spotted by Alpha Intel, August has been a banner month for Apex Legends so far. The player base grew by a hair at the start of the month before reaching its highest numbers ever. According to aggregate site SteamCharts, 510,286 concurrent players were in the game on Wednesday, August 10. Over half a million players is certainly not the result that No Apex August organizers were hoping for.

Lingering bugs from the game’s 13th season were what prompted the movement in the first place. There were two primary gripes: a large amount of lag on Xbox platforms and a glitch with Loba’s Jump Drive, which had cropped up before. Those issues have since been mended, though many players were already restless by that time. To some degree, an Apex Legends sit-out was understandable. In fact, we’re still seeing bugs in the game, including a new one that is combining different Legends’ abilities.

Even so, it seems that Season 14: Hunted has kept a lot of players hooked. The new season began on August 9, just one day before the new player record was set. Season 14 brought the usual assortment of buffs and nerfs for weapons and Legends alike, along with some map changes in Kings Canyon. The big addition, of course, is the new hero Vantage, whose abilities are anchored in sniping. The new Laser Sight attachment goes hand in hand with her arrival.