Apex Legends’ latest update broke controller support on Xbox Series consoles

Last week, EA’s battle royale shooter Apex Legends launched a “collection event,” which is shorthand for a limited-time setup that is mostly about players buying a bunch of cosmetic items from the in-game store. The only problem is that this time, the massive update has made the game nearly unplayable for many people on consoles.

Without warning, the battle royale shooter’s usually tight and responsive controls — a known quantity for Respawn Entertainment games since Titanfall and a reflection of its Call of Duty heritage — have become slow, laggy, and frequently unresponsive. Even worse, simply playing the game can make your control inputs feel altered even in the dashboard and while using other games; restarting the console seems to fix this issue.

Players on Xbox Series X consoles appear to be complaining the most, especially when paired with one of Microsoft’s Elite gamepads. Without any specific information about what the problem is, I can only describe what I’ve experienced, which is a combination of lag, as well as failed input detection that can make it hard to do things like use burst fire weapons, change directions, or even pick up items from the ground. After trying it out a bit over the weekend, I noticed input lag as an issue the most while playing on Xbox Series X and Series S, using both an Elite 2 gamepad, as well as newer Xbox Series gamepads that include the share button.

Acknowledgment of the problem by developers has been limited to a couple of reply tweets last week and one Monday afternoon saying the team is continuing to investigate. However, not everyone who plays the game follows its official Twitter account or dug into replies to find the initial statements, leaving many players in the dark about what might be going on while they try to play a competitive shooter using controls that just don’t work.

As it is, people who play the game have been left to discover the problem on their own and pass around possible solutions. I tried some of them, like updating the controller firmware or not updating it or plugging the pad in with USB instead of playing wirelessly. One suggestion I haven’t been able to try is using an older Xbox One controller. Of those, plugging the gamepad in seemed to help a bit, but it still wasn’t as responsive as it used to be. What I saw was consistent with some reports posted on Reddit, where plugging in seemed to fix the failed input detection issue without resolving the lag and stuttering. This post highlights how, after playing Apex, they experienced input lag system-wide on the dashboard and in other games, which I also noticed.

Oddly, this may not be the only game with this issue on Xbox, as MLB The Show 22 players have complained about similar problems, but it was one that didn’t exist within Apex Legends prior to last week’s update.

The just-launched Awakening event includes an opportunity to play the well-liked Control mode again, which also serves as a chance for new, or new-ish, players to give the game’s characters a spin in a more forgiving team deathmatch-style setting than the game’s standard battle royale or 3v3 arena options.

It also tweaked one of the game’s original characters, Lifeline, with greater healing abilities to go along with a specific section on the World’s Edge map dedicated to her and, for those who collect all of its items, access to a special heirloom item for the Valkyrie character. The developers also laid out some much-anticipated changes to the game’s ranked system that will take effect soon. It would all be great if only playing the game on Xbox wasn’t such a painful experience, which feels like insult added to injury after the update last week also cut off Xbox players for hours in the morning. For some reason, the new version of the game started downloading to consoles early, and since the servers weren’t ready, that meant you couldn’t play this online-only game at all, and even trying to launch it on Xbox was enough to initiate the update.

Meanwhile, over on Apex Legends Mobile (which is developed by a separate team), players have more than just working servers and controls. They’ve got access to a mobile-exclusive legend, as well as features players on the main game have been asking for. That includes abilities added to characters like the thief Loba, who is able to grab respawn banners for vanquished teammates using her Ultimate ability, or the “holographic trickster” Mirage sending out decoys that look like his teammates instead of just himself.

With Apex stricken on the platform I usually use (and where I’ve unlocked many in-game items), I gave the mobile version a try. It isn’t really enough to hit the spot — even while using a real controller via Bluetooth — but I appreciate what the team behind it has been able to accomplish. Right now, it just reflects where the base game is failing, both in terms of usability and communication about whatever the problem is that’s going on.