Apex Legends' season Legacy launch was plagued with server issues
Things are mostly fixed now, but watch out for missing cosmetics
If, like me, you were one of the many excited players eager to jump into Apex Legends last night to try out all the lovely new things added in the battle royale's ninth season, you likely had a rough time logging in. A menu screen telling me there were no servers, the queue for Arenas mode being infinitely long, and losing access to all but the base characters were but a few of the problems I ran into myself. While these things seem to have been fixed now, it's fair to say the Legacy update had a rough go of it.
"We're working through some service issues in @playapex at the moment due to high demand," developers Respawn Entertainment tweeted at 6:38pm BST, not long after the update went live. "We're on top of it and will get players into games as quickly as we can!"
Two hours after that they were still battling with the server issues, though some players were managing to get into matches. It was around that time I dragged my pals into Apex to see if things were stable enough to play, and after about 10 minutes of the opening screen telling me there weren't any servers, I eventually got in.
Unfortunately, it was all a bit weird and broken once I got there. As Respawn mentions in a later tweet from 9:38pm BST, their Marketplace service was struggling. This is what keeps track of all the things you have unlocked, like characters and skins, as well as the battle pass and any in-game currency you have. This meant you couldn't look through any of the menus for loadouts and the like on the lobby screen. This affected players jumping into a battle royale or ranked match (the queues for these were slow, but were at least letting players in) because they didn't have access to any of the Legends except the base ones. Naturally I was mortified, because I forgot my main boy Mirage was one of the first unlockable characters.
Updates like this typically get a big influx of players, though this particular patch came with the exciting new permanent 3v3 Arenas mode, which most players seemed to be descending on. For the first few hours of the update going live, I found it impossible to get into an Arenas game. Once the issues started clearing up, however, I had an absolute blast, and I can confirm it's still just as fun as when I tried it out at the preview event.
Respawn appeared to sort most of these teething problems by around 3am BST last night. I tried playing Apex today and found that the opening screen still chugs a little bit while it finds a server, but I can get into both battle royale and Arenas matches just fine. I have access to all my Legends and in-game currency again now too, so things seem to be mostly mended.
It's worth noting that, if you do play some Apex today, you might find your cosmetic items have been unequipped. Respawn say this a minor side effect of their fixes, but it's all still in your account, you'll just have to re-equip things like your skins, charms, heirlooms, etc.
Now Apex Legends Legacy finally seems to be in full swing, check out our Apex Legends Arenas guide or our Valkyrie guide to help get to grips with all the newness.