On my way to steal your Titan.

Are you ready to drop very expensive military hardware from remarkably high heights again? Good, because Titanfall 2 will likely arrive sometime late this year or early in 2017.

That info comes from this interview with Titanfall 2's lead writer, Jesse Stern, who also shares some more info about the new game's inspirations:

So we are doing our best to deliver a vision of grand global colonial warfare retelling the story of the American Revolution and the American Civil War in space. We imagined the next generation of immigrants moving out to the new frontier of an inhabitable planet. Rather than taking a traditional sci-fi approach to that we wanted to look at how that would happen practically, what the ships would look like and with machines that were designed for excavation and construction , demolition and working the land, and what happens when they are turned into instruments of war.

Stern also explained that the sequel to Respawn's debut game would be about the seemingly inevitable collision of technological progress and war. He went on to say that while the game will remain "grounded and dirty and human and real," we'd also see scenes where "science meets magic." It's not clear if he means literal magic or metaphorical magical or science-so-advanced-that-it-may-as-well-be-magic magic, but hey, I'm game for any of those. Why not.

The Titanfall Aesthetic tee is now available in S-4XL. (It isn't, actually. Sorry.)

You may have heard that I like Titanfall. It's true. I like it a lot. It has mechs, and wall running, and really great skyboxes, and a really fun horde mode that went completely overlooked because it released way after the game launched. It was one of my favorite games of 2014, and if I'm being totally honest, probably my favorite first person shooter since Syndicate. So when I heard that information was starting to trickle out about the game's sequel, my ears really perked up.

That said, I've also spent a lot of time reading, watching, and playing through sci-fi stories set in American War analogues. I get it: The American Frontier and the genre of stories it inspired relate very clearly to both the American Revolution and our Civil War. But there are so many other frontiers out there that can be mined for inspiration, too. (I'd love to see a sci-fi adaptation of the Icelandic Sagas!) And whether your "frontier" inspiration is the American West, the Australian Outback, or the African Continent, I'd also love to see a game tackle the fact that very few frontiers truly are uninhabited worlds waiting to be "discovered." Maybe Titanfall 2 will take some strides in that direction.

In any case, I'm increasingly excited to climb back into my Atlas and rev up the old chain gun. Here's hoping that the game's single player campaign will help hook a solid player base and that the game's multiplayer component will make the improvements it needs to remain lively and fun for a long time.

(Disclosure: Titanfall 2 lead writer Jesse Stern has extensive credits on the CBS show NCIS. Giant Bomb is owned by CBS Interactive.)