An esports tournament faced a setback when two players were apparently hacked during a live-streamed game, leading to the event’s postponement.
Competitors were taking part in the Apex Legends Global Series, a high-stakes esports competition for the popular game Apex Legends, offering a total prize pool of $5 million.
Two different players experienced cheating incidents in separate matches, disrupting gameplay midway.
One player, Genburten, expressed shock during the game as he realized he was being hacked, saying, “Wait, what the heck? I’m getting hacked, I’m getting hacked, bro,” as shown in a video they shared on X, which was also circulated on various YouTube channels.
A screenshot of an Apex Legends player, during a game in which he appeared to get hacked mid-game.
The video clearly shows Genburten mysteriously being able to see opponents highlighted on the map, even those behind obstacles, indicative of a cheat known as “wallhack” that provides an unfair advantage.
Before the cheating became evident, a window displaying a menu for activating cheats briefly popped up on the screen, labeled as “TSM HALAL HOOK.”
A screenshot of a window, showing cheating modes, that suddenly appears in a competitive Apex Legends game.
Simultaneously, a message attributed to the hackers, “Apex hacking global series, by Destroyer2009 &R4andom,” appeared in the game’s chatbot, as seen in a video clip.
In another match, a similar incident occurred with another player, ImperialHal, as documented on their X account.
ImperialHal, reacting to the cheating, exclaimed, “I’m cheating, I’m cheating, I’m cheating, I’m cheating,” mentioning the use of aimbot, which enables automatic targeting of enemies, essentially granting the ability to hit opponents without precise aiming. “What if I just don’t shoot?” questioned ImperialHal.
Following these unauthorized actions, the tournament organizers decided to halt and delay the ongoing event.
“In light of the compromised competitive integrity, we have chosen to postpone the [North America] finals for now. Further details will be shared soon,” stated the official Apex Legends Esports account on X.
The precise nature of the incidents remains unclear at this time, with Electronic Arts, the publisher of Apex Legends, yet to respond to inquiries from TechCrunch. Both Genburten and ImperialHal have also not commented.
The developers of the anti-cheat system utilized in Apex Legends and other games, Easy Anti-Cheat, dismissed the possibility of a remote code execution (RCE) bug within their system on Monday.
“We have looked into recent reports regarding a potential RCE issue with Easy Anti-Cheat. We can confirm that there is no RCE vulnerability being exploited within EAC at this time. We will continue collaborating with our partners to offer any necessary support,” stated the official Easy Anti-Cheat account on X.
