New Apex Legends update adds a 1v1 gauntlet that takes it back to FPS basics

'1v1 me bro' - a sentence oozing with overconfidence and bravado. That used to be the way to settle things with your mates back in the day, and now Apex Legends is tapping into the essence of this ancient FPS tradition. As part of its revived Arenas experience, the game's latest update gives it a new spin with Duels, a 30-player mini tournament where the aim is to win as many 1v1s as possible.

Apex Legends Season 25 has seen the triumphant return of Arenas - an amazing, round-based mode that was once a permanent fixture in the game, but was removed over two years ago. On reflection, Arenas should've never become a core mode in Apex. While it's always needed a rotation of alternative modes to keep things fresh, it's one of the best battle royale games at the end of the day, and it's that last-team-standing experience people are going to gravitate to the most. However, Arenas didn't deserve to be left on the shelf for two years either. I've missed it, and I'm glad that it's back for a limited time.

However, as part of today's update and the start of the new Future Icons event, it's being transformed. Arenas Duels strips Apex Legends back to its FPS bones and encapsulates the purity of a 1v1 gunfight - but it does so in a way that still sees you compete against dozens of other players. A lobby of 30 players will be formed, and over the course of five minutes, you'll be thrown into several 1v1 matchups with random opponents. The goal is to essentially win as many matchups in those five minutes as possible, with a leaderboard constantly tracking how many wins the top players have.

This is also a mode where gunplay, timing, and movement are the keys to success - the legend meta and the weapon meta is redundant here. There are no character abilities, healing items, or throwables, just a randomized loadout of two weapons. That's it.

When I first heard that a 1v1 spin-off of Arenas was coming in Season 25, I was a bit confused about how it would be implemented. But this mixture of rapidly rotating matchups, a leaderboard to keep things competitive, and a more pure FPS experience is a pretty much perfect way to go about it. The only thing I (and many others) are questioning is the decision to highlight the outline of your opponent for the first few seconds while you're frozen and waiting for the round to start, a bit like what you get in Call of Duty Warzone's gulag. Either by design or due to a bug, this 'wall hack' also persists for a couple of seconds after the round begins, allowing both players to perfectly read each other's first movements. Get rid (or fix) that, and the psychological warfare of where players will move and peak first will be ramped up considerably.

Apex Legends' Arenas Duels mode is live right now, but it's only around until Tuesday, July 15. The Future Icons event, which features a new event pass and rewards track, is also live today, along with some balancing updates that impact legends such as Ash, Vantage, and Wattson. You can check out the full patch notes for the new update here.

If you're on the hunt for more experiences like Apex, check out our lists of the best FPS games and best free PC games.

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