Respawn adds abandon penalty to Apex Legends' Arenas mode

A much-requested feature has finally been introduced to Apex Legends' Arenas mode, as the 3v3 team deathmatches now have a leaving penalty - something that should hopefully deter players from flaking on their squadmates.

Several changes were announced via patch notes posted on Twitter, including the new abandon penalty for Arenas games. Respawn explained that this is similar to the penalty for Ranked Battle Royale games, and will apply to those who leave a full squad in the middle of a match.

Unfortunately it seems a couple of people are currently getting unfairly punished by the new penalty, with some reporting being slapped with 10-minute sin bins for leaving during the end screen animations. Director of communications Ryan K. Rigney assured one player that the team was investigating the problem.

Incoming @playapex update.

We're restoring the slow effect to Wattson's fences, introducing leaver penalties to Arenas, improving loot distribution for backpacks, and more!

See the full list of changes below: pic.twitter.com/tJoFLLfEK0

— Respawn (@Respawn) May 24, 2021

Once the issues have been ironed out, the abandonment penalty should discourage players from quitting games prematurely. Many in the Apex Legends community had highlighted this as an issue, reporting that players would often quit matches as soon as they started losing. Not everyone is happy with the new penalty, however: one player expressed frustration at having to waste time with AFK teammates in a casual Arenas match, unable to leave without getting a penalty. You win some, you lose some.

Another change of note is that Wattson's fences have been partially restored in this update. Last month Wattson's fences suffered from a glitch which removed their slowdown effect, making the kit pretty ineffective. The new patch restores this effect, as you can see in the demonstration below (featuring a very slow Octane):

The patch also fixes a number of annoying bugs - adding an input delay to Valkyrie's ultimate to prevent players from accidentally cancelling the ability, for instance, along with fixing "various Arenas bugs and errors". Loot distribution has been tweaked in Arenas, with more backpacks spawned on the floor rather than hidden inside loot bins. The amount of survival time XP you can earn in Arenas is also being given a temporary boost until Respawn can adjust survival time calculations to include the buy phase. Oh, and you can no longer use that Valkyrie firing range exploit to pad your stats - that just won't fly.