Update (March 15, 2022 - 6:12 PM ET) - The problems with Apex Legends servers have been resolved according to Respawn Entertainment and King's Canyon is now back in rotation.
"This issue should now be resolved, and we have reenabled Kings Canyon," read the latest tweet from Respawn Entertainment. "It may take a moment for everyone's game to update, so please hang tight if you don't see it back in rotation yet. As always, we appreciate your patience here."
Update (March 14, 2022, 11:48 PM ET) - Shortly after acknowledging the issue with Apex Legends servers, Respawn Entertainment made the decision to temporarily disable the King's Canyon map.
"We are temporarily disabling Kings Canyon while we continue to work on a fix for this issue," read the tweet from Respawn Entertainment. "Thank you again for your patience here, legends."
Disabling King's Canyon suggests that the issue with the loot vaults in the Water Treatment section of the map may indeed be the source of the mysterious server crashes. We'll continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds.
Our original story continues below.
Apex Legends servers are reportedly going down due to an "internal server error" -- and some players suspect that a Crypto exploit is involved.
The last few weeks have been pretty great for Apex Legends. Unlike the previous season, Season 12 started off strong and debuted the new Control LTM. Unfortunately, the latest Apex Legends update appears to have introduced a problem that is causing servers to crash.
What's Happening With Apex Legends Servers?
Several reports on the /r/ApexLegends subreddit (first, second, third) indicate that servers are inexplicably shutting down in the middle of matches, presenting players with the following message:
Error
Server shutting down - Internal server error
We don't yet know of the cause behind the problems with Apex Legends servers, although there are several competing theories. Some players suspect that there is an issue with a particular area on the King's Canyon map and others suggest that it may be due to an exploit with Crypto.
One player, however, has captured video of what is suspected to be the cause behind the problem:
The lobby crashes after you go to Caustic treatment on Kings Canyon when opening the Gold Loot @playapex @alphaINTEL #ApexLegends #XboxShare pic.twitter.com/HWVGnzoUR4
— Aljeihron (@cHillOutYUbeezY) March 14, 2022
In the above video, the players open the loot vaults at Water Treatment. The server immediately crashes once the vaults begin to close.
The majority of players reporting server issues say that they took place on King's Canyon. However, a smaller number of players are reporting server crashes on other maps. This suggests that the issue may be more complex than the issue with the loot vaults on King's Canyon.
Respawn has acknowledged the issue and is working to resolve it. Unfortunately, it has not mentioned what the root cause of the problem is.
We are aware of an issue causing @PlayApex players to receive an error message while in-game. Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this.
— Respawn (@Respawn) March 14, 2022
The issues with Apex Legends servers aren't the only problem, either. As this Reddit submission reports, Easy Anti-Cheat support for Linux appears to have been broken with this update. That means, in turn, that the game would have problems working on the Steam Deck since the handheld gaming PC uses SteamOS, an operating system based on Linux.
Apex Legends has had a few other hiccups in recent weeks. The start of Season 12 had problems with Bloodhound's Prestige Skin, and a hack was discovered that allowed cheaters to dual-wield guns.
Hopefully, Respawn can fix the problems with Apex Legends sooner rather than later. We'll continue to monitor the situation and update this article when we have more information.