One of the limited time modes (LTMs for short) that Apex Legends fans look forward to every year is the Winter Express. The Winter Express, which has been a staple of the online hero shooter every year since the LTM’s release, celebrates the holiday season by having teams of three duke it out to gain and maintain control of Mirage’s Christmas train as it speeds around the map. It’s been seen as a fan-favorite and is often considered to be one of the best modes the game has to offer. Unfortunately, it appears the highly-regarded LTM will be absent from this holiday season, leaving fans understandably heartbroken and outraged.

The rather lazy explanation that a developer has given on X/Twitter was that it “carries too much technical baggage” and that they’re “scared to think how bad the train and certain legends play together.” In other words, they don’t feel like putting in the work. The game mode is already made and has been available for the last several years; there’s no real reason they can’t do the same.

Let’s look at that quote and why it’s such a poor response. If they’re so “scared” of how certain legends would work in a certain gamemode, just disable the ability to choose those few legends for that gamemode. They’ve actually done that in the past for other LTMs, so why not implement that here? There are currently 25 playable characters. Two or three can be inaccessible and there would still be a huge variety to choose from.

Better yet, if the developers actually did want to do work, they can rebalance the characters for the LTM. If Conduit’s ultimate or Catalyst’s spikes are an issue, nerf them for when they’re being played in that mode. Give these moves longer cooldowns or make them easier to destroy. This way, if folks still want to play as their favorite characters, they can.

Alternatively, they could also make updates to the map or the train that affects these abilities. Perhaps traps and constructs can’t be placed on the train, or the train moving destroys them. People would have to figure out a new strategy for the more control-oriented Legends, but they’d still be able to play as them and be able to compete on the Winter Express.

Another option is to just leave the LTM as is. If every team has a Legend on it that may be overpowered for the LTM, then everyone has the same strengths and is therefore on an equal playing field. If that’s not enough, people will learn to deal with these stronger characters. Destroy fences and step around spikes. Of course, that doesn’t entirely fix things, but it’s better than not being able to play at all, which is the current situation.

It’s not ranked. winning and losing may be the goal of the game, but it doesn’t truly impact future matches or offer any sort of gain. It’s just supposed to be for fun, so getting everything right doesn’t have to be the main priority. Taking the gamemode away from fans is the only way to prevent them from having fun with it, and that’s exactly what they’ve done.

If they replaced the Winter Express with a different holiday LTM, like they did with their Halloween mode, that would be one thing. However, that’s not the case. Instead, there are no LTMs available during the week and just the terribly balanced and ultimately boring Revenant Uprising LTM on the weekends. Instead of riding an exciting Christmas train, fans can now either do nothing or play as Revenant to run across the entire map, easily get gunned down, and repeat.

There has been an outcry on social media from fans who just want to take their annual ride on the Winter Express, but it looks like they won’t be getting their Christmas wish this year.

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