It’s been a tough week for Apex Legends, and an even tougher week for its development team, following strong player backlash during the game’s Iron Crown special event. After making some significant changes to how players could earn the new (and prohibitively expensive) legendary skins included in the event, Respawn took a moment to apologize for how it structured the event. A part of that process of making good appears to be reaching out to the Apex Legends subreddit, where things quickly heated up into verbal sparring between at least one Respawn developer and players.

The Reddit thread began innocently enough on Saturday, as a detailed description of how Respawn was restructuring the Iron Crown event, as well as future events. A Respawn developer by the username of “dko5” led the charge, saying that Respawn needed to be better about communicating to its community so players aren’t caught off guard by the methods the free-to-play battle royale game makes its money.

Many of the comments from Reddit users inquired about the initial decision-making process to make the Iron Crown event’s loot boxes prohibitively expensive, with some demonstrating no small amount of anger at EA and Respawn.

“Remember to not start s****** their d****, they probably planned this,” wrote one user, referring to Respawn’s reversal on the Iron Crown event's loot box pricing issue.

“Hell no,” responded dko5. “We're humans, you know, and we will make mistakes.”

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Things continued to only get more heated from there. Dko5 continued to explain how Respawn strives to not make Apex Legends a game where players can pay more money to earn game-breaking advantages, but balances that with the reality of Respawn needing to make money off of its product.



“We've said it before, but we will not engage with temper tantrums, and personal attacks or virtriolic (sic) threads are completely unacceptable,” dko5 said, responding to another user who was reflecting on the vitriolic comments made towards Respawn. “We took a look in the mirror this week (lol - thanks for all the attacks guys) and decided we hadn't met up obligations and are making changes because we believe in our approach. I've been in the industry long enough to remember when players weren't complete a**-hats to developers and it was pretty neat. I forged a bunch of long lasting relationships from back then. Would be awesome to get back there, and not engaging with toxic people or asking "how high" when a mob screams "jump" is hopefully a start.”

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In one comment, Reddit user daviss2 called Respawn and similar developers “money grabbing f****” and insinuated that charging players for extra in-game content was harmful to customers.

“Hey everyone - found the d*** I was talking about,” dko5 responded. “Guess what, I didn't even read your comment except for the first sentence and last. This kind of garbage doesn't warrant a reply - but lucky for you I already made a comment about this earlier. Go find it.”

Respawn community manager Jay Frechette also took a moment to push back against negative comments.

“So it's fine for you all to call us liars, full of s***, and other personal attacks when we communicate an apology and update to the event but we're "immature" when we call people out on it. Got it,” Frechette said, responding to another comment calling Respawn “money hungry.”

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Since then, the Apex Legends subreddit has been flooded with angry posts regarding the developers’ various comments, but one comment from another Respawn developer, identified as RaymeCV on Reddit, has climbed its way to the top.

“Drew and Jay are being honest with you, and they’re good people. I’d suggest engaging with them in good faith in those Q&A threads if you have concerns or questions about all this. I mean; argue and have your opinions for sure, but the conspiracy & personal-attack stuff is disheartening.”

IGN has reached out to EA for comment on the situation, and will update if we receive a response.

Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.