Part of this may have been its multiplayer-focused setup. The first Titanfall reviewed well, but it seemed to lose steam after a couple of months. Or, of course, get an extra heap of humiliation on top of it. Getting to the dropship (or alternately, killing the fleeing players or destroying the ship) makes for an entertaining mini-game that utilizes all of the skill and strategy of the primary mode, eventually allowing the losers to snap a bit of validation for a 10-minute match. Once one team or the other reaches the requisite amount of points, the losers will be directed to an extraction point. Pilots can even hop on the back of Titans, to rip open the enemy and shoot out its vital components or piggy-back on a friendly bot and shoot from its shoulder, like Rocket Raccon riding Groot.Įven the end of the multiplayer matches showcases innovation. Specialized Titan-killing weapons, and the generally larger target that the Titans provide, mean that matches constantly weave and flow between Pilot and Titan combat as the steel behemoths are called in and destroyed. While players on foot are of course more vulnerable, dying from one or two hits of the Titans’ giant weapons (or a viscerally squishy stomp or punch), the Pilot’s movement powers combined with the well-designed, multifaceted stages mean that you’ve still got a fighting chance even out of your personal giant robot. In action they’re more like Gundams than tanks, and they make a wonderful counterpart to the whoosh-crikey movements of the pilots.Ĭombining gameplay with Pilots and Titans is where things get really spicy. While Titans are indeed bigger and slower than Pilots to make up for their more powerful weapons, they’re surprisingly fast and graceful, and can be made more so with tweaks applied between matches. The chunky Titans might seem like they’re right out of MechWarrior, big, cumbersome metal beasts that are a sledgehammer to the footsoldier’s scalpel. Once it’s arrived on the battlefield, you can either hop into the cockpit and take personal control against the other team, or continue on foot and let your Titan’s AI do the shooting. You can take chunks of time off by killing enemy players or grunts or by achieving map objectives. Each match begins with a countdown timer until your customized Titan, being built in an orbital factory, is ready to drop into the arena like a 10-ton trump card. Then there’s the signature feature, the Titans. Quick, thoughtful use of the environment can annihilate groups of grunts and give you the advantage on head-to-head confrontations with other players, even if they’ve unlocked more powerful weapons and tools. The expanded, free-flowing movement is an integral part of the combat. Player characters (“Pilots” in the game’s lexicon) can dash and bounce around the map almost as if it’s a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater level, utilizing wall-running, double-jumping, and other parkour-inspired tricks. Thoughtful use of the environment can annihilate groups of grunts and give you the advantage on players.Īnother key innovation in Titanfall’s standard shooter setup was its movement. When it came out for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC in the spring of 2014 it sold like hotcakes, perhaps helped by a somewhat tepid market at the time. It made a splash from its introduction at E3 2013, wowing gamers with a mix of fresh, parkour-infused multiplayer shooting and the titular Titan mechs as a fresh addition to the genre. Part of the first wave of Xbox One titles and one of the console’s very few exclusives, the original Titanfall was the first game developed by Respawn Entertainment, which was founded by former executives of Call of Duty creator Infinity Ward. What is Titanfall right now? A damn shame. With the rumor that EA has canned a third Titanfall game after years of development, I think it’s time we look back on what this game was, what it could have been, and lamentably, what it never will be. It’s been just under nine years since Titanfall landed on the PC and Xbox, and just under nine years since publisher Electronic Arts has been underutilizing one of its most interesting and promising franchises.
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