LogInRespawn rolled out a fix and explained what happened.
Apex Legends has been suffering from some audio issues, especially since Season 16 launched in February. Good news! Respawn has finally pinpointed the root of the problem and explained what went wrong.
The developers noticed "various instances of dropped sound FX" soon after the beginning of the season. There were some sounds missing and grenades would not explode sometimes. After a lot of work, Respawn identified a single line of code responsible for months of bugs; it was hidden in Season 16’s new weapon – the Nemesis.
"The Nemesis has a particle effect that ramps up when heating up, but when it’s uncharged we don’t need to waste resources playing it as the effects are concealed inside of the weapon. So, when the weapon gets updated we would simply stop this particle effect if the weapon had no charge.
Every time the server simulates an input from the weapon's owner, this particular line of code is executed. Players send in their inputs for every single frame that is run on their client, and it’s the server’s job to simulate all of these inputs. This means that every single player with an uncharged Nemesis would create a “stop particle” "effect" on the server every frame, and this line of code was being called even when the weapon was holstered."
Basically, multiple holstered Nemesis called this line of code for every single frame run on the player's client. With many users like this, it's no wonder it caused FX drops. And the developers couldn't detect the issue during playtesting because there simply weren't so many people with so many Nemeses.
Respawn provided a detailed account of the work on Reddit, so go check it out and don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.