Apex Legends players are accusing Respawn Entertainment of having abandoned the game's Arenas mode. Despite its introduction in Season 9 of Apex Legends, Arenas have now gone several seasons without being touched by the game's developers.
Upon the initial launch of 3v3 Arenas, the permanent game mode received frequent updates in order to remain appealing to the Apex Legends player base. However, this stream of updates slowly came to a halt, and it has now been several seasons since the mode was touched, leading to many players questioning whether Respawn have any plans at all for Arenas. Players earlier this year campaigned for a rework to the Apex Legends Ranked Arenas mode, but nothing came from it and the wait continues.
Deciding enough was enough, Reddit user DrixxYBoat took to the platform in order to raise awareness about the abandonment of Arenas, voicing their concerns about the boring gameplay evoked by two years of the same map rotation, questionable Apex Legends matchmaking, and outdated weapon balancing which doesn't reflect the modern state of the game's duos and trios modes. Now in Season 14 of Apex Legends, the Arenas and Ranked Arenas modes, which are permanent rather than seasonal, have not been touched for an unjustifiably long time.
Users on the thread accused Respawn of having given up on arenas, with one user remarking "Respawn and abandoning their projects, a tale as old as time." It is not as if there simply hasn't been time to create new content for the Arenas mode, either; there are several Arenas maps which are currently unused and could easily be added to the current rotation to revitalize the mode - which inevitably became stale once players figured out the best Arena strategies and team compositions for each map. While users agreed that the unpopularity of Arenas was no surprise, one of the most popular comments being "I forget Arenas even exist," many argued that this should instead encourage developers to try and improve the mode, rather than pretending it doesn't exist entirely.
With past attempts to bring attention to the Ranked Arenas and Arenas modes having failed, it is unlikely that the modes will be touched by developers in the near future, despite the community's vocal complaints. With Ranked Arenas having once had serious Esport potential, it is sad to see the mode and its more casual counterpart both fall into a state of disrepair.
Apex Legends is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
