Apex Legends dev responds to Season 9 triggering ‘the fear of glitter’
After an Apex Legends player with ‘sparkalaphobia’ – the fear of glitter – and epilepsy explained how the new Bocek Bow prevents them from playing Season 9, a dev said they’re taking the issue seriously.
An Apex Legends player has long been suffering from ‘sparkalaphobia,’ the fear of glitter, but it’s come to a head after the Bocek Bow has triggered epileptic seizures. In a Reddit post on May 6, the player explained to Respawn Entertainment that Season 9 is the first season they “can’t truly play,” as the Bocek Bow’s arrows shimmer in a way that triggers their epilepsy.
Sparkalaphobia is defined as the fear of glitter, but for Reddit user sky-m1n, it’s their epilepsy that gives them the fear. “It’s not the glitter I’m afraid of,” described sky-m1n. “But the overexposure of light that’s the issue.”
In a Reddit post explaining the problem to Apex’s devs, they said, “I can stare at a static image no problem, give me a white noise channel and I’m fine, Christmas ornament sure too, but once you flicker a halogen while it rotates, the reflections start to hurt.”
sky-m1n then described how when a seizure is triggered, you get a “sudden tense sensation rushing behind your skull,” a burning image in your eyes, and a “snapping of your neck from the jerk.”
“Then it hits you, brain.exe gets deleted and you stare into the abyss as if blindness took over,” they continued. “The worst is that with brain.exe dead, your body can forget to breathe and you drown in lifelessness until it all comes back. That’s what scares me.”
How this relates to Apex Legends Season 9 is the Bocek Bow’s arrows shimmer with a pulsing yellow light when they’re on the ground or embedded in a surface. “I feel uneasy, the pulse gets under my skin and the more arrows there are, the more uncomfortable it becomes,” sky-m1n described.
It sometimes gets to the point that sky-m1n has to force close the game and cradle themself as they “can feel like an epileptic seizure coming.”
The post received a ton of attention on Reddit, and Respawn Entertainment’s director of comms, Ryan K. Rigney, responded to the thread. He said “never even heard of this before, but I think we ought to take it seriously. Letting the team know.”
Hopefully the devs are quick to address this issue so that sky-m1n and other players with epilepsy can continue to enjoy Apex Legends in Season 9.
Image Credit: Respawn Entertainment
