Apex Legends Dataminer Finds Secret Message from Devs

An Apex Legends dataminer found a secret message from developer Respawn Entertainment while exploring the game’s code following the new Season 18 update.

The dataminer, Twitter user KralRindo, posted a screenshot to Twitter yesterday of his findings: a code string reading “const string HI_DATAMINERS = ‘TOP SECRET DATA HERE -> https://www.respawn.com/careers’” with the link redirecting to the developer’s career page.

Oh hello pic.twitter.com/GioPEiAxBH

— KralRindo (@kralrindo) August 9, 2023

The finding sparked many comedic responses from users on Twitter and Reddit, with one Reddit user saying “I respect that, they literally said ‘get a job. But with us.’”

This humorous finding comes just a day after KralRindo revealed some changes Respawn had made to the game’s code which make datamining more difficult. Specifically, many assets are now stored in Rpak files, which are much more difficult to edit and showcase in-game than the previously-used VPK files. The change is big enough that KralRindo remarked that “this might be end of an era” for Apex Legends datamining.

This isn’t the first time Respawn have messed with dataminers. In 2020, during the lead-up to Apex Legends’ fourth season, the developer intentionally staged a fake-out character reveal, planting fake leaks about a supposed upcoming legend named Forge before having the actual new legend, Revenant, kill him off in dramatic fashion. At the time, the game’s design director Jason McCord had been frustrated with leakers, telling Dot Esports that the plan had originated “as a fun way to misdirect data miners who, at the time, felt like they had solved our next legend and had ruined our surprise.”