Apex Legends' latest go at a compressed battle royale forgets the journeying spirit at the genre's heart

Apex Legends launched its Season 26 update this week with the new Wildcard mode, what must be its fourth or fifth attempt at a 'battle royale but faster' sideshow. If anything, Wildcard – with its tightened safe zones, generous respawn allowances and automatic loot pickups – is the most ferocious, cage fightin'est variant yet, its matches routinely playing out as breathless slaughters as crammed-in squads fight, die, and resurrect over a condensed selection of strongholds.

Still, while I’ve enjoyed ApeLegs' previous action-favouring tweaks, something about Wildcard underwhelms. It’s not the shooting, which is as crisp and dynamic as in any other Respawn FPS. And it’s not the simplified gear gobbling, which is fine for a supplementary mode. It’s that at the end of a Wildcard round, even the ones I’ve won, I’ve never felt that I’ve really gone anywhere or done anything except aim down my sights and left-click. In chasing nonstop drama it denies you something that good battle royales, and their progenitors, can so effectively deliver: a journey.

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