We know Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends might be considered one of the best battle royale games we’ve ever played, and it’s certainly one of the best competitive FPS games available on Xbox and PS5 right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. In fact, Apex Legends is still missing a major feature in crossprogression. With this being something players have been asking after for a long time, and something Respawn has said it’s trying to implement for months, the good news is that new leaks reinforce rumors that cross-progress save support is coming sooner rather than later. There is, however, quite a large bit of bad news; it might not have account merging.
Let’s talk about the good news first, shall we? Apex Legends dataminer and leaker ‘HYPERMYST‘ has taken to Twitter to share that three strings of code relating to Apex Legends’ upcoming cross-progression UI changes have been added to the game’s files – something that suggests that the introduction of the new feature could arrive as early as Apex Legends’ Season 18 release date.
As you can see below, the information doesn’t give us a great look at what this UI change will actually look like in-game; however, HYPERMYST is rarely wrong about things and this seems like a good indicator that the feature itself is “arriving soon” – as they say in their tweet.
It’s also worth noting that this is just the latest in a long line of recent leaks teasing the upcoming release of this feature. Apex Legends leaker ‘KralRindo‘ and dataminer ‘AG420‘ have both shared additional lines of code that were added to Apex Legends in recent updates relating to cross-progression.
What’s the bad news, then? Well, another emergent Apex Legends leaker has claimed that account merging isn’t going to be introduced alongside Apex Legends’ cross-progression feature. In response to the above leak, ‘Osvaldatore‘ simply said “don’t get your hopes up for account merging [by the way]”. Of course, this isn’t setting anything in stone, but it’s a worrying revelation for Apex Legends players looking forward to the feature.
What does this actually mean, though? Well, it means that you’ll have one universal Apex Legends account on Xbox, PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch moving forwards – after the addition of cross-progression, that is. However, you won’t actually be able to collate all your existing accounts into one – if account merging is indeed absent. It sounds a little confusing at first, though, so here’s a real example.
If you had a really nice Rampart skin on your Xbox and you wanted to use it playing Apex Legends on PC, because you’ve decided to start playing it there instead, you wouldn’t actually be able to do that – even with Apex Legends new cross-progression features. The Rampart skin would be locked to your Xbox, just like it has been before. However, if you managed to unlock a really nice Rampart skin on your Xbox after the cross-progression features were introduced, you would be able to use that on PC; just because there might be a lack of account merging doesn’t take away from the fact that, moving forward, all your progress will be shared – with any luck.
For anyone who’s unlocked literally anything on more than one platform in Apex Legends, this is straight-up bad news. If you’ve spent money on Apex Coins, completed previous battle passes, and picked up some cosmetics from the in-game store, it’s a slap in the face if Osvaldatore’s claim is true. The lack of this feature, which is something games like Warzone and Fortnite have had for quite some time, is an insult. We know this isn’t necessarily something you should assume a game has, but the other free shooting games have set a standard that this should be available for players spending their real money on in-game cosmetics – and Apex Legends is already so very late to the party when it comes to introducing it.
To make matters worse, Apex Legends’ former director of communications Ryan Rigney claimed (while he still worked at Respawn) that “merging existing accounts” was part of Apex Legends’ cross-progression plans in a Reddit Q&A held roughly two years ago. Of course, quite a lot has changed since then, and Rigney is now marketing director at Odyssey Interactive, but these comments have left Apex Legends fans thinking that account merging was on the way. Maybe this is still the case and Osvaldatore is incorrect, but with how long ago that comment was made, it wouldn’t surprise us if things have changed.
Sure, the fact that Apex Legends’ Revenant Reborn update is going to make the Synthetic Killer more ruthless than ever is exciting, and leakers have unearthed footage of the battle royale’s first full standalone single-player mission, but this really is a kick in the teeth for anyone who’s played Apex Legends on multiple platforms over the years. We hope the leaks are wrong, but that’s rarely the case when it comes to Apex Legends nowadays. More often than not, it’s only a matter of time until they’re proven right.