OpTic Apex Legends pro furious as PC freezes fall on deaf ears at ALGS Split 2 Finals

OpTic Apex Legends player, Dropped, was left furious after his PC froze during Game 3 with only eight squads left in the Finals of ALGS Split 2. Despite alerting admins on stage immediately, the team was not given a pause to rectify the issue. 

ALGS Split 2 has drawn to a close, and it did so in a nail-biter of a finals with reigning ALGS Champions DarkZero and 2023 Split 1 winner TSM vying for the top spot. However, it was DarkZero’s Zer0 that went above and beyond to bring them the trophy. 

The Split was not free of its controversies though as its final was marred by a tech issue, one that proved disastrous for OpTic, with no tech pauses given for the team to figure things out. 

During game three of the finals, OpTic’s Mark “Dropped” Thees’ PC froze mid-way through the match. This crash occurred as there were only eight squads remaining. While frozen, Dropped was downed by a stray bullet and consequently killed by the barrier, all while unable to respond.

OpTic Apex Legends player lashes out after disastrous PC freeze with no pauses

.@Dropped's PC Froze… pic.twitter.com/IWYgkvIo8o

— OpTic Gaming™ (@OpTic) July 16, 2023

Admins immediately looked at his PC, with Dropped asking the admins, “my PC is frozen, can they pause the game?”

Unfortunately, the game was not paused for Dropped at this point in the match, with his teammates William “Skittlecakes” August and Logan “Knoqd” Layou left to fight for themselves. The remaining duo, now at a clear disadvantage, would be subsequently eliminated shortly after Dropped died from the barrier, placing eighth in the game. 

This soon led to uproar from Dropped and his Green Wall teammates. In a tweet addressing the PC freeze after the event finished, Dropped wrote, “game crashes in game three and eight squads left on rotate, DarkZero gets a free win because of it and gets match point.”

We are playing for literal hundreds of thousands of dollars, shit like this cannot be happening. Better systems need to be put in place to prevent this, do better @EAPlay @shahin @PlayApexEsports

— OpTic Dropped (@Dropped) July 16, 2023

“They don’t pause the game and just say ‘unlucky!'” Dropped continued. “Hate to be that guy but where is the competitive integrity man, absolute joke.

“We are playing for literal hundreds of thousands of dollars, s*** like this cannot be happening. Better systems need to be put in place to prevent this, do better [EA].” 

OpTic was able to bounce back after the unfortunate freeze, placing 14th, 2nd, 5th, and 2nd in the subsequent games. However, just as Dropped put it, the team missed out on a potential match point in that crucial third lobby. 

He added in a follow-up tweet, “Don’t want to be only negative. I’m extremely proud of us as a team to bounce back and mentally reset after a crash, and still pull out 8th place for the LAN. First LAN as a team and will only get better, see you at Champs.”