Mixer star and ex-CS:GO professional Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek has vented his frustrations with Respawn Entertainment, as it becomes clear that they will not simply remove overpowered weapons from Apex Legends.
While most streamers tend to stick to their favorite games, or genre of games, shroud’s versatility has seen him become one of the biggest names in the gaming community. Whether it’s FPS, battle royale or RPG, the former CS:GO pro has demonstrated his gaming talent consistently over the past few years.
Despite the ability to never fully devote himself to one title, he has spent increasing amounts of time on Apex Legends of late, bringing his brand of high-level gameplay back to Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall-inspired battle royale.
Recently, shroud’s criticism has entailed muzzle flash in Apex Legends and, in a February 27 YouTube video, the star turned his attention to overpowered weapons.
While a game like Fortnite sees the developers remove a gun if they are struggling to balance it, Respawn Entertainment tends to persevere in their balancing efforts. While some praise this attitude, shroud believes it may be detrimental to the game.
“I hate that they’re just not gonna pull guns,” he said. “I hate it, I hate it. It pisses me off, it makes me mad.”
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“All they [Respawn] had to do when they moved the Devotion to the pool of getting it from the crate was that they still had it in there, and then make it a 0.001% chance of getting it, so when people look back they can say “it’s there, but it’s just really rare.”
The Devotion LMG is thought to be one of the best weapons in Apex, at least in the current build of the game. However, shroud clearly thinks its ease of acquisition is hurting the game.
“That’s the only way they can pull a gun out of the system while not making a bad PR move,” he finished. “Because obviously if they pull a gun people are going to be pissed.”
Essentially, shroud is arguing that the Devotion’s chance of appearing should be made so low that it’s essentially removed from the game, without Respawn actually having to pull it completely.
It doesn’t seem like there are any plans to remove weapons from Apex Legends, despite the fact that shroud thinks the game would benefit from it. While games like Fortnite remove weapons abruptly, they are both praised and criticized for such behavior. Regardless, shroud clearly thinks the Devotion has to go.
Unlike Fortnite though, Apex Legends has lots of cosmetics for weapons, meaning they couldn’t remove them without also effectively removing player’s cosmetics, which they may have paid for through coins or packs.