Respawn CEO Vince Zampella apologizes over Apex Legends devs rude behavior

Apex Legends devs

It looks like the Iron Crown controversy isn’t about to end anytime soon. Respawn CEO Vince Zampella had to make a public apology over the Apex Legends devs rude behavior, which included calling players “complete ass-hats” and “freeloaders.”

There is an entire Reddit thread displaying some of these messages, which were initially deleted. Most of the controversial posts came from a user known as dk05, who turns out to be Drew McCoy, Project Lead at Respawn Entertainment.

ALSO: Apex Legends’ Iron Crown highlights the awful relationship between gamer and developer

Vince Zampella’s tweet states that some Apex Legends devs joined the Reddit thread, but things went “to a pretty bad place.” He mentions that some of the staff “crossed a line with their comments,” and apologizes to any fans that were offended.

However, Respawn’s CEO is also standing by its staff, as the following statement implies:

“I will always stand behind the team here at Respawn and support them on speaking out against some of the toxic and nasty comments being directed at them, including everything from death threats to comments aimed at their family and loved ones.”

The tweet ends Vince Zampella expressing his desire to “having an open, healthy relationship with our community.” Many players were quick to support the Apex Legends team against what they label as toxic behavior, while others go as far as saying that “the employee should be fired,” or that they are switching over to Call of Duty Modern Warfare as soon as it launches.

The changes to the Iron Crown event came after the backlash over the Iron Crown packs. Players had to spend $154 to get all the packs, since they could only receive two Apex packs for free while playing the event. The changes introduced a rotation of the event-exclusive Legendary items during the final week of the event, with players being able to purchase them for 1,800 Apex Coins (roughly $18 USD). Not everyone was happy about the changes, although now players could at least purchase the skin that they wanted to without being subjected to any RNG trickery.