Open Letter to EA – The Oceanic REDSEC Community

We are writing as members of the Oceanic (OCE) REDSEC community regarding the recent APAC playlist changes announced for Season 4.

EA stated that these changes were intended to "improve matchmaking health, queue time, and create the best experience for players across the most popular modes." Unfortunately, for the Oceanic region, the practical outcome has been the exact opposite.

Prior to this update, OCE consistently supported multiple Standard Battle Royale (100-player) matches every evening on local Sydney servers. During peak hours, it was common to have two or three active lobbies running, with a healthy, competitive player base. This wasn't a struggling mode—it was the mode that kept the OCE REDSEC community alive.

With the removal of Standard Battle Royale from APAC, local players have effectively been left with only two options.

The first is Casual Battle Royale, which is limited to a maximum of 32 human players with AI filling the remainder of the lobby. This is an onboarding experience and is fundamentally different from competitive Battle Royale.

The second is Ranked Battle Royale on Singapore servers, where Oceanic players typically experience 90–110 ms latency, inconsistent matchmaking, and queue behaviour that appears unpredictable. Players can queue for extended periods without finding a match while others queueing at the same time are placed into games. Unlike Standard matchmaking, Ranked also provides no visibility into whether a lobby is actually filling, making it impossible to know whether to keep waiting or give up.

These are not equivalent replacements for the local 100-player experience that previously existed.

What makes this even harder to understand is that this playlist reduction appears to have been applied specifically to APAC. Other major regions continue to have access to local Ranked, Standard, and Casual playlists simultaneously.

What data demonstrated that APAC—and specifically OCE—required the removal of its only local competitive Battle Royale playlist?

From the perspective of the Oceanic community, this change has fragmented, not improved, matchmaking.

The result has been players leaving REDSEC altogether, with many in the community now trying other games because the experience they enjoyed no longer exists. The primary competitive local playlist has been removed. Players are being forced onto higher-latency overseas servers. Many cannot reliably access Ranked matches despite active queues. Local Battle Royale has effectively become an onboarding mode dominated by AI.

This isn't simply frustration over change. It is a significant reduction in the competitive experience that Oceanic players have supported for months. Many of us purchased Battle Passes and cosmetics because we expected to continue playing the local competitive mode that existed when we made those purchases.

• We ask EA to explain the data that led to this APAC-specific decision.
• We ask EA to clarify exactly how Ranked matchmaking currently functions in APAC, including how players are selected into matches.
• We ask EA to investigate the widespread reports of inconsistent Ranked queue behaviour affecting Oceanic players.
• We ask EA to reconsider restoring Standard Battle Royale for OCE, or provide an alternative solution that delivers an equivalent local competitive experience.
• We ask EA to work with the Oceanic community before making further changes that disproportionately affect our region.

We appreciate that playlist decisions are difficult and that different regions have different player populations. However, this update has had consequences that do not appear to reflect the reality of the Oceanic player base, nor the intended outcomes EA hoped to achieve.

Our goal is not simply to complain. We want REDSEC to succeed in our region. The Oceanic community has remained active, competitive and passionate despite being one of the smallest player bases globally. We believe this decision has unintentionally undermined that community rather than strengthened it.

We respectfully ask EA to review the impact this change has had on Oceanic players and engage with the community on a better path forward.

If you're an APAC REDSEC player who has been affected by these changes, we encourage you to share your own experience. The more constructive, factual feedback EA receives, the better chance there is of finding a solution that works for everyone.

UPDATE INFO FOR EA: The APAC region can confirm singapore ranked servers only start popping around 930pm Australian Eastern Standard Time or 1130pm NZ time. That is the earliest anyone in Aus/NZ can play any form of competitive battle royale, DUE ENTIRELY TO THE FACT that normal quads was removed, which before this playlist update saw us filling multiple concurrent lobbies all late afternoon until around midnight. With ANZ people no longer being able to play before 930pm, people are giving up on this game.

Again, please review these comments. These comments are only a small insight into how an entire community is currently feeling after we lost our only 100 person option to play. Playing from 930pm Aus time and 1130pm NZ time on Singapore servers is not a solution for 90% of the player-base here.