Shroud catches blatant Apex Legends hacker in Ranked Play

Jacob Hale

Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek might be one of the most talented first-person shooter players there is – but even he isn’t good enough to counter a blatant hacker in Apex Legends ranked play.

Hackers are somewhat of a given in any game, especially when you’re playing in competitive matches against elite-level players. For that reason, questions were immediately raised when shroud and his trio were utterly decimated while running through World’s Edge.

While it’s certainly possible for shroud to get outplayed from time to time, you rarely see him be killed in such a way, and before the team had even been completely wiped out they were already crying out “cheater” at their opponent – but had to be sure he was actually cheating.

The February 2020 launch of Apex Legends Season 4 brought players a bunch of new content.

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For the next couple of minutes, they decided to spectate the players who had killed them – and knew within seconds that there was definitely something funny going on.

In the first clip, which sees the squad being outplayed in all aspects, suspicions were raised and the trio decided to keep watching and see what happens.

“Cheater!” one of the team exclaimed, before saying “maybe not” and just that the enemy had “hit all their shots,” which is definitely plausible considering it was a high-level lobby. However, shroud agreed with the initial call, saying without a doubt that “he was cheating.”

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After deciding to watch them for a while, they quickly noticed some impeccable shots coming from their opposition, and immediately burst out laughing at how obvious it was, with “Optimuslvl” raining damage upon an enemy from a ludicrous distance.

Shroud admits that he wasn’t sure at first, assuming that the players were “just insane,” before saying the manner in which they died was “just absurd.”

Straight after saying it he spectated Optimus railing an enemy team from miles away and, once again, burst out in laughter and disbelief.

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Shroud goes on to explain how they were able to spot that someone was hacking so quickly, saying that once you get to a certain level, you are “used to the timings of gunfights and what weapon does what.”

“Me and Matt died almost instantaneously,” he continued. “We both died at the same time from a decent bit away, so that’s how you can figure out if someone’s cheating or not.”

“If it’s one person that died, maybe he got lucky, but if two people die, you can’t get that lucky… unless you’re on controller,” he finished. He did clarify, though, that even controller doesn’t get aim assist from that distance.

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While shroud wasn’t sure at first, he quickly realized that he must have been killed by cheaters, obviously a little annoyed at the situation.

That said, if you watch out for the signs, you’ll be able to better identify when there really is a cheater in your lobby, making it much easier to pick them out and report them. So, while hackers are always going to be in these games, big streamers calling them out might just make it a little harder for them to do.

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About The Author

Jacob is Dexerto’s UK Editor and Call of Duty esports specialist. With a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing, he previously worked as an Editor at Ginx TV. Jacob was nominated for Journalist of the Year at the 2023 Esports Awards. Contact: jacob.hale@dexerto.com.