Apex Legends is bringing back the Holo-Day Bash and Winter Express this Christmas

News
By published

A dev livestream referenced the popular mode.

Apex Legends Season 7
(Image credit: Respawn Entertainment, EA)

Winter Express was a much-beloved Apex Legends mode, introduced late last year over the Christmas period, that changed-up the usual order of business in favour of quickfire rounds between three squads. Built around battling for control of a train, 'the Holiday Express', the mode slightly re-jigged map elements like ziplines and packed the squads into close proximity: it was fast, frantic, had amazing music, and was gone too soon.

But it's coming back. As part of the hoopla around Apex Legends' new Season 7 content, Respawn developers took part in a livestream discussing the patch. It's fairly long (and interesting!) but at around 31:40 the screen shows the main menu's 'timeline', which tells you what your mates have been up to. And it shows that Respawn's mates have been playing a bunch of Winter Express.

Here's a screen of the moment in question.

The winter express is a-comin.

Props for the gamertag 'PROducers' (Image credit: Respawn Entertainment)

In addition to this, the current update has also added badges (Apex's in-game achievement system) that reference both Winter Express and... the 2020 Holo-Day Bash. The first version of this event introduced a bunch of cosmetics and challenges, as well as the Winter Express mode, and was the first time I'd ever seen a gun decked out in candystripes and a jolly festive scarf.

There's no official word on when this all kicks off, though perhaps worth noting the 2019 Holo-Day Bash ran in-game from December 13, 2019 to January 7, 2000.

Rich Stanton
Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."