Apex Legends devs respond to ‘sparkalaphobia’ concerns over Season 9’s Bocek Bow

Apex Legends characters using Bocek BowRespawn Entertainment

Apex Legends devs Respawn Entertainment have responded to a viral post pointing out how the new Bocek Bow is unusable to some players due to their sparkalaphobia – a fear of glitter. 

Since Apex Legends launched over two years ago, Respawn Entertainment have been trying to accommodate everyone in their battle royale.

A whole host of quality of life changes have been made to optimize the battle royale as much as possible, and the devs are continuing to work on the different accessibility features too. Most recently, they said they’d look into further changes to the colorblind settings.

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Now, though, a viral post about Season 9: Legacy has pointed out a new problem where the Bocek Bow is unusable to some players due to sparkalaphobia – which is a fear of glitter – and epilepsy.

Respawn/EA
There have been plenty of quality of life changes made in Apex.

The issue was highlighted by Reddit user sky-m1n who said that they’ve been unable to use the bow because they “feel uneasy” when there are multiple arrows shimmering on the ground with their yellow highlight.

“The pulse gets under my skin and the more arrows there are, the more uncomfortable it becomes,” the Redditor said. “Sometimes to the point I have to force close and cradling myself, because I can feel like an epileptic seizure coming. Can there be an accessibility option to turn ammo matte solid without the pulsing please?”

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Respawn’s Director of Communications, Ryan Rigney, quickly responded to the issue, saying: “Damn, never even heard of this before, but I think we ought to take it seriously. Letting the team know.”

The Redditor has already suggested a few different solutions for the developers to use that would help suit them, so it might be an easy fix for Respawn.

We’ll have to wait and see as to when it might be implemented, however, as changes to lighting and colors could cause issues elsewhere. But, it’s another shining example of Respawn trying to cater to everyone.

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