The launch of Apex Legends season 9 attracted a record number of players, according to Respawn communications director Ryan Rigney.
Our “current players” charts still sort of look like an ongoing cardiac arrest but by God we’re setting records on Apex Legends today pic.twitter.com/isALQ8tLLM
— Ryan K. Rigney (@RKRigney) May 5, 2021
Even though Apex Legends: Legacy launched with some serious server issues that made it impossible for players to log in for hours after launch, the demand for new Apex Legends content outweighed the frustration of not being able to get into the game. Apex Legends Season 9 launched at 10 a.m. M. PT / 1 p. M. ET / 6 p. M. BST on May 4, but Respawn spent the first few hours after its release trying to fix a number of issues. Those issues included players who couldn’t connect to EA’s servers and others who could connect only by accessing the base Legends. The Apex Legends market was also unavailable to many players who managed to get past the loading screen.
However, the addition of Arenas in Season 9, a permanent 3v3 mode, clearly intrigued so many players that they broke the Apex Legends record for simultaneous players on Steam. Just 24 hours after its launch, Apex Legends reached more than 300,000 peak players on Steam, even though the game’s charts looked like “an ongoing cardiac arrest” according to Rigney.
Not only did Apex Legends 9 season 9 introduce a new permanent mode, it added a new legend called Valkyrie with new wild abilities, a bow, and map updates.
