Apex Legends received a big content launch this week, strangely not following their Tuesday release schedule which they’ve stuck to for the last year. The Holo-day event includes a new selection of Christmas-themed skins and cosmetics, alongside the new Pathfinder boxing glove heirlooms, available for the sweet price of $150 (don’t worry, that’s a topic for another time), and a new Mirage Town takeover Party Boat.
Instead, I’m focusing on the new game mode, The Winter Express. Narrated by Mirage, scored by some excellent Christmas Apex Legends music, the Winter Express is a fun, fast-paced non-BR game mode which plays world’s away from the regular ‘Play Apex’ playlist.
You spawn with a chosen loadout based on your character choice. So far we’ve seen the loadouts rotate throughout the week, with each legend getting a different loadout, from a Flatline and Hammerpoint P20 to a G7 Scout with the ugly 3x scope to a Mozambique without a hop-up.
The main objective is to capture the train three times. You can capture the chain by sitting on it, like a Capture the Flag game mode, or by killing every member of the other two teams.
It’s a game mode that relies inherently on teamwork, maybe even more so than the regular BR mode. Sticking together with your team is essential, especially when you’re actually trying to capture the train. With a Blue shield to start and only regular shield cells and syringes to heal, there’s a lot of downtime between fights when you need your teammates to cover you.
The map is a shrunken version of World’s Edge with different train stations – one in Capital, one in Refinery, and one between Capital and Skyhook, one outside Epicenter. Each offers a different battleground, with a variety of verticality and cover. Learning how to play these specific areas of the map has been a fun challenge.
And that’s the main takeaway from this game mode. It shows off the potential for Apex Legends to be more than just your typical Battle Royale game – The Winter Express is fast, competitive, and an excellent time to warm-up your aim. There are intense moments, huge clutches, and a lot of the character’s abilities become much more valuable in such enclosed spaces.
Plus, a lot of the RNG is removed – it really is just you, your team, and your chosen loadout. No worries about landing on a P20 and a stack of heavy ammo, no worries that your enemy has just picked up a gold shield off their drop. It’s you and your gun!
