As exciting as live service games like Apex Legends and their frequent updates can be, they also come with a price. On one hand, frequent updates mean that content is constantly fresh and exciting. On the other hand, it's all but impossible for game developers even of Respawn Entertainment's experience to ensure everything works perfectly with every update. The latest example of this has to do with the recently released character Ash and a unique bug with her Ultimate ability that phases players "back to the lobby."
Before Ash players start to panic, it appears that this specific bug only happens when using her ultimate in a very specific place on the map. Most players will never encounter it unless they're looking for it. For those Apex Legends players who do stumble onto it, however, it's a match-ender. It forces players back to the Apex Legends lobby to start a new match. As such, it's a serious problem worth Respawn prioritizing a fix for, but due to its rarity it's also quite a funny issue.
Here's how Ash's Ultimate bug works. Ash's Ultimate is named Phase Breach and it allows her to teleport to a targeted location on a one-way trip, unable to return like Wraith's Ultimate allows. When this Ultimate is used in a specific location, in this case a crane directly north of World's Edge's Lava Siphon location, the match will crash when Ash arrives at her Ultimate's target atop the crane.
There's no clear reason for Apex Legends to break in this way. In a video shared on Reddit, the Ash player disconnects before her Ultimate completes her teleportation. As such, players believe that the problem has something to do with Ash being teleported into something she isn't supposed to. As in, Ash is clipping into the material of the crane and the game is booting her out of the match for being a situation it doesn't know how to handle. One Redditor jokingly says that the player is simply "phasing back to the lobby."
While the exact nature of the problem isn't obvious, the fix is. Without worrying about what's causing the Ash player to crash, Respawn can simply make it so Ash isn't able to teleport to the dangerous location in the first place. That's probably the actual problem, anyway. Ash's Ultimate likely isn't acknowledging unpassable terrain.
With that said, these things take time, as Respawn likely has larger problems to deal with in Apex Legends. Still, that may change quickly as Apex Legends players start searching the terrain of the map for areas that will break the game, just for the fun of it.
Apex Legends is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, with plans to support mobile devices in 2022.
