Developer Respawn Entertainment permanently added in a duos mode to Apex Legends, but don’t expect solo competition to also become a mainstay in Electronic Arts’ first-person battle royale shooter.
Apex Legends‘ 4.2 update is available now and makes duo-play a permanent addition on both the Kings Canyon and Worlds Edge maps. While duos won’t be available for ranked play, this is a welcome change as duos was previously a limited-time mode in the past. The decision came after developer Respawn was impressed by the mode’s popularity and its reinforcement of the teamwork necessary to succeed in the free-to-play game’s default trios mode.
While duos will be a regular option for Apex Legends players going forward, the solo setting isn’t likely to get a permanent place in the game. Respawn explained that the limited-time mode had several negative side effects. New players weren’t able to learn the skills necessary to succeed with others and new players had confusing experiences since certain character skills aren’t designed for solo play. So Respawn will retool the gameplay to see how a solo mode can be a better fit.
“When we introduced solos as a limited-time mode last year we saw it actually negatively impacted the game, especially when it came to new player retention,” Respawn said in the latest patch notes. “We’ve also purposely designed Legends and their abilities to complement team play and squad composition, but when played solo, some Legend abilities become useless. These are just some of the reasons we decided not to include solos in today’s update.”
The Apex Legends 4.2 update also adds in a new town takeover mode called Bloodhound’s Trials that will allow players and their squads to take on a horde of prowlers in an attempt to gain high-level loot. In the way will be other Legends looking to gain the rewards for themselves.
Electronic Arts released Apex Legends with no prior announcement in February 2019. Since then, the free title set in the Titanfall universe has found success on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. It quickly became Respawn’s most popular title to date as it reached 50 million players in just a month after launch. It reached the 70 million registered player milestone in October 2019 and is currently on its fourth season of content updates.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.