Apex Legends Accidentally Releases Item Early, Causes Loot Box Problems

Releasing stuff early is good, right? Not when the developer doesn't plan to do it, it's not, as Apex Legends fans found out last week.

That's when some players in Respawn Entertainment's battle royale game were receiving loot boxes that only contained two items instead of the expected three. The issue, Respawn eventually found out, was related to a new Lifeline tracker that was due to be released with this week's launch of Season 10 content. It somehow got added to the loot tables despite not yet existing in the game; hence the "empty slot" in loot boxes.

Our team has identified the issue and a fix is now live. This was caused by a new Lifeline tracker being configured to drop in Apex packs too early.

Affected players will be granted a make-good pack and will find the tracker in their inventory after the 10.0 update.

— Respawn (@Respawn) July 31, 2021

Respawn has since corrected the issue, and if you got one of the affected loot boxes, Respawn's got you covered -- you'll receive the Lifeline tracker this week when the update went live, as well as an extra loot box for the trouble.

Apex Legends' Season 10: Emergence is set to kick off tomorrow, August 3.