Hackers launched an attack against Apex Legends late last week, replacing the server's playlist with a message about the state of Titanfall under the savetitanfall.com URL: "TF1 is under attack and so is Apex." The hijacking of the playlists has left many players completely unable to play Apex's modes until Respawn regains control later that day. Other players, who presumably were able to play the game during the attack, reported post-match pop-up messages telling them to "visit savetitanfall.com and resubmit."

The point of the hack was ostensibly to call attention to ongoing DDoS attacks that have plagued both Titanfall games as far back as 2019. This Reddit thread gives a good overview of the situation, including the frustration some players feel (fairly or not) that EA and Respawn chose to release the original Titanfall on Steam without patching the known vulnerabilities In early April, Respawn finally responded publicly to the long-standing complaints by saying that help was on the way, and things seemed to be looking up for a while. In mid-May, however, a new wave of attacks hit both "Titanfall" games.

The SaveTitanfall website denied any connection to the weekend hack, but its front page took a very accusatory tone against Respawn and Electronic Arts. It says, "This problem has been going on for years, yet Respawn willingly pretends to be unaware of the situation." When we contacted the developers directly, they stopped responding as soon as the Titanfall 1 issue was brought up."

"The developers are not very responsive.

"Selling a game that doesn't work (or in this case, is unplayable) as advertised without fixing the various issues and ignoring customers is fraudulent... There is no doubt that Respawn is actively ignoring these issues... Respawn and Electronic Arts have the Despite having the resources to fix them, they have not done so and continue to knowingly sell games that do not work as advertised and do not work at all."

However, in a message posted on Twitter today, Ryan Rigney, director of communications for Respawn, said the studio is well aware of the problems and is working hard to fix them, and that the attacks on Apex Legend are a He stated that the attacks on Apex Legend are a waste of everyone's time.

"I was holding my newborn nephew when I learned of the Apex hack. I had to give my nephew back and couldn't go to work and spend the day with my family," Rigney tweeted. Also, Sunday's attack was tied to an awareness campaign we have already publicly acknowledged. The problem is not awareness. DDoS in particular is a difficult problem to solve. Really hard.

"The team has never stopped working on DDoS solutions, and anti-cheat is truly a never-ending whack-a-mole war. When we do solve it, I promise you that it will not be because hackers "made us aware" by ruining our holidays. They accomplished nothing of value."

While Rigney's own misfortune is obvious, and most of the responses on Twitter have been sympathetic, some have rightfully argued that Respawn itself is to blame for refusing to "fix" the game. 'Your team charged $40 for Blue and did nothing about the hacking and DDoS issues for months and months. 'You made a billion dollars last year, why don't you use some of it to fix the game?'

Others pointed the finger at Electronic Arts rather than the hackers as actually responsible for forcing Respawn to work on their days off: "This game should have been cheat-proofed from day one.

Rigney, for his part, was not having it.

The frustration felt by Titanfall players is no doubt justified, but it is also not unique. The older an online game is, the more vulnerable it becomes to hackers who have nothing better to do than mess with a seven-year-old FPS that is no longer being actively updated. Team Fortress 2 is probably the most famous example: Valve has been fighting TF2 bots for years, with varying degrees of success.