The Apex Legends anti-cheat team has issued an update regarding hardware bans and their plans to ramp them up on consoles.
Hardware bans are one of many anti-cheat tools used by modern multiplayer games to stop cheaters from simply creating a new account to evade enforcement and prevent hackers from even being able to access the game again on the same device.
Addressing Apex Legends console cheaters
In a Steam blog post, EA revealed that since the end of April, 2026, the team has “executed nearly 6,000 hardware bans across PC and console. While the majority of those bans impacted players on PC, we are actively increasing our utilization of hardware bans on consoles.”
EA went on to reassure Apex Legends players that “hardware bans are happening, and we are planning to utilize them even more, especially on consoles.”
“Hardware bans are our most severe penalty so we reserve it as a proportional response when we encounter high-severity cheating. We strive to reform rather than permanently banishing players from our game, so hardware bans typically target malicious bad actors and serial cheaters.”
Those aren’t the only steps EA has taken against Apex Legends cheaters in recent weeks. On July 9, 2026, it was formally announced that “jitter aim” and RC filters used to exploit aim assist and remove recoil on controllers are considered cheating. Apex Legends in-game detections can now identify this, and users who are caught using hardware or software to alter aim assist or recoil patterns will be flagged as cheaters and have their accounts banned.
It’s always positive to see developers taking steps to improve their anti-cheat and dishing out harsher penalties. However, there’s a long way to go before Apex Legends is a cheater-free zone.
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