Apex Legends is the hottest battle royale game out right now, and so many players have sunk hundreds of hours into leveling up their accounts, unlocking items, and getting coins to spend on unlocks. That’s why it’s devastating to hear reports that some players are experiencing a full Apex Legends account reset, which causes them to lose all their progress.
It’s a pretty extreme issue, make no mistake, and infinitely terrifying to any Apex Legends player. Whether you’ve spent a dozen hours earning various items in the Season 1 Battle Pass, or have been playing the game since it came out in January, a full account reset that causes you to lose everything is a hideous event to face. What causes the account reset? What set it off in the first place? Can anything be done about it? Is developer Respawn doing anything about it? We’ve got all the answers below.
What is the Apex Legends account reset?
There was a small 100Mb-odd update to Apex Legends earlier today, and it seems to have had some unintended consequences. In fact, it completely messed up the entire game for a significant number of players. The Apex Legends account reset bug, as per its name, completely resets the account of any Apex Legends player it affects. That means they reportedly lose all their progress and anything they’d unlocked, which apparently includes unlocked Legends, skins, statistics, and all currency. Affected players are reporting that their purchased Apex Coins remained in their accounts, but otherwise everything else was gone. Even their Battle Pass may have been refunded.
What causes certain accounts to lose everything?
Other than the fact that the issue only popped up alongside the small update issued today, it’s not entirely clear what’s actually causing Apex Legends accounts to be reset and players to lose all their progress. User WingCommando on Reddit, who posted on the big megathread for the issue and claims to be a developer, had a couple of ideas. Firstly, it could be “an edge CRM service bug” which is creating new accounts over the top of the old ones, which are duplicates.
However, the more likely suggestion is that the player databases were accidentally wiped, so when current players log in they get created as new users. Now, Respawn should have backups of the database, in which case it should be a simple matter of re-uploading the backups and putting back the database. However, if Respawn doesn’t have a backup of the deleted database, WingCommando says that players are “screwed,” frankly.
Is developer Respawn aware of the Apex Legends account reset issue?
While this is undoubtedly a scary issue, the good news is that Respawn is aware of the Apex Legends account reset problem, as you can see from the studio’s tweet below. The developers simply say that they’ve been made aware of the problem caused by today’s patch, where players lost all their progress, and they are “looking into the issue.” Hopefully this means it will be sorted sooner rather than later.
Until the issue has been resolved we recommend players do not buy or craft anything. We'll continue to provide updates, along with an ETA, as information comes in.
— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) April 3, 2019
How can I get my Apex Legends account back?
As of right now, there doesn’t seem to be any fix for the issue, and all players who have lost all their progress are just stuck with the problem, waiting and hoping. In other words, at the moment there is nothing to be done apart from waiting and hoping Respawn can find a fix, re-upload the missing databases, or just sort out whatever the problem is as soon as possible. The team says it will be providing updates constantly, along with an estimated time players can expect to be able to access their accounts again.
However, it’s worth noting Respawn’s second tweet (which we also posted above), where the developer asks players not to “buy or craft anything” until the issue has been fixed. Basically, if Respawn does have to completely re-upload the database, any progress made since the last update may get canceled out. This notably includes any players who were not affected by the big account reset bug, suggesting that Respawn may have to replace the entire database. Regardless, if possible we advise players not to play Apex Legends at all until this major issue has been fixed, if you can stand to be away from the game for that long.