Titanfall 2 – the story mode casts you as a brand new character

The team that created Call Of Duty 4 return with a sequel to their sci-fi shooter hit, with new modes, new weapons, and a PS4 version.

Released in early 2014, as an Xbox exclusive, Titanfall was expected to be the first big new franchise for the next generation. And it was, sort of. The Xbox 360 version meant it wasn’t next gen-only and not appearing on the PlayStation 4 meant many people never got to see it. The lack of a traditional single-player story mode also made it feel less substantial than it could have been, especially as many complained that the excitement of the multiplayer wore off all too quickly. Which if nothing else makes it very obvious what to fix for the sequel…



The short history of Respawn Entertainment has been told many times before, but the short version is that after a falling out with Activision most of the senior staff at Modern Warfare maker Infinity Ward left the company and founded their own studio. The original Titanfall had much in common with Call Of Duty’s multiplayer modes, in terms of the fast pace and short range combat, but it’s big new idea was that you not only play as a sci-fi soldier but one that can climb into and pilot a range of robotic ‘Titans’.

Although it’s out this October (somewhat inadvisably it has to be said, since it’s squeezed between Battlefield 1 and Infinite Warfare) E3 was the first time the game had been seen in public, and even then almost nothing was shown of the new story campaign – or indeed anything other than a new multiplayer mode called Bounty Hunt. This was what we got to play, a cross between Call Of Duty’s Kill Confirmed and a wave-based survival mode.


We got several goes on a new map called Boomtown, a fairly generic looking affair in what seemed to be a warehouse district. In fact, at first sight Titanfall 2 doesn’t seem to have changed much at all from the original, in terms of gameplay, graphics, or art design. Not that any of those were necessarily a problem the first time round.

Titanfall 2 – no longer an Xbox exclusive

But the three loadouts we had to choose from before starting a map did make a significant difference to how you play. Especially the robot equipped with a grappling hook, which allows you to shoot around the level like Batman or grab enemies towards you like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. In fact, the grapple was so much fun we had to really force ourselves to play with the other set-ups, one of which had a radar beacon that highlights nearby enemies and the other was able to create a holographic decoy.

No matter which you used though it was still the core gameplay that shone through, with your nimble pilot able to wall run and leap about the map almost like a platform game. Calling in your Titan does work a bit differently now though, as it’s based on you accruing points rather than just working on a timer. It’s nowhere near the difficultly of maintaining killstreaks in Call Of Duty though, and ensures a more varied mix of pilots and Titans at most times.

There are six all-new Titans in the game, more specialised variants of the original three that can be customised to your liking. The one we were using was the Ion type, similar to the standard Atlas from the first game and equipped with a mine, a vortex shield (capture bullets in mid-air and shoot them back at whoever you like), and a slow-to-charge-but-super-powerful laser cannon. Although frankly our favourite bit was stepping on lowly soldiers and punching enemy Titans in the robot face, which feels as enjoyably weighty as ever.



After playing the game we spoke to Respawn CEO and founder Vince Zampella, as well as lead engineer John Shiring, lead single-player designer Mackey McCandlish, and lead multiplayer designer Todd Alderman. As you can see, there were a lot of subjects they’d been told not to talk about but they still had some interesting insights on how they’re responding to the original game’s criticisms and ensuring greater variety and longevity.

Formats: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC

Publisher: EA

Developer: Respawn Entertainment

Release Date: 28th October 2016

GC: You were one of the first online shooters not to have a traditional single-player mode, but that’s almost become commonplace nowadays. So I wonder why you chose not to keep this sequel multiplayer-only?

VZ: We definitely considered it. We looked at Titanfall, when we shipped, and asked what do people want and where can we go? There were some things that we wanted to do, to take it to the next level, and then we heard that the campaign multiplayer mode in Titanfall 1 was the number two played mode. So people liked it, they liked that kind of story fusion, so how can we do more of that? If people are looking for more of that, then perhaps we can tell them more about the lore and the world.

GC: I don’t know how many of you guys were at Infinity Ward…?

PR Guy: They’re all ex-Infinity Ward here.

GC: Okay, well then this question is going to be relevant then.


All: [laughs]

GC: First of all, I’m still not really clear why you didn’t do a campaign mode the first time round, considering how good the Modern Warfare games were. Was it time, money, or just that you didn’t want to do that kind of thing anymore?

MM: It was time, mostly. We were a small start-up, with a lot of other distractions, and so it was somewhat about focusing on one thing and making it great, and somewhat about there being a lot of… look, we experimented with some single-player stuff and there were a lot of problems that needed to be solved in a tiny window.

VZ: I’d say they both had huge problems to solve, and about that much time left [indicates small amount of time with his fingers]. So we just kind of got together and concentrated our effort in one area. And on the design side we’ve got guys that are more single-player focused or multiplayer focused, but for making a new IP we all had to come together or we would’ve created two different worlds.

It helps to focus on just one and to just get us all on the same page, as to what Titanfall is – so that we could build the next one with a campaign.

GC: But now you do have more time, how similar are you intending it to be to a Call Of Duty campaign? Are there still certain things you want to avoid doing again? I imagine things must’ve been fairly restrictive back then.


JS: I don’t think we ever really followed it like we’re making a Call Of Duty type thing.

GC: But I’m sure if you told Activision that you, for example, wanted to make Modern Warfare multiplayer-only they probably wouldn’t have been too pleased about that.

JS: [laughs] Those conversations were there. Although, yeah, the answer probably would’ve been no.

Titanfall 2 – giant robots are the best kind of robots

GC: So will you continue in the same general vein as Modern Warfare or will it be something less linear?

All: …

GC: I’ve just realised you’re probably not allowed to talk about the story campaign are you?

MM: Well, it is a single-player campaign that takes you through many missions and tells you the story of going from a militia rifleman to becoming a pilot and getting a Titan. It’s very different to anything we’ve done in the past.

GC: I was a fan of the first game but I think one of the key complaints was that the lore and backstory was maybe a little generic. Do you accept that criticism, and is it something you’ve tried to address in the new game?

MM: I think we’re naturally expanding the nature of the universe, just because we’re building a bigger part of that world. I think we had more people calling, ‘We want more story!’ than not, so I think even when you’re building up the multiplayer world you want everything to be cohesive and grounded and make sense. So even in your head you build out what the constructs of this world are.

GC: The original Titanfall had a very limited colour palette, and there was a clear attempt to limit things like aliens and exotic weapons. With the success of less grounded shooters like Overwatch do you feel that you can afford to introduce more overt sci-fi elements with this sequel?

JS: I think you can take things a little further, as you kind of build the core of what the brand is you can take things a little bit further. But we didn’t really have a mandate either way.

VZ: Being grounded and realistic has always been really important to us, and just true to us as a team. And with sci-fi we looked at one of the challenges as being making science fiction accessible, when we don’t have like a comic book character to guide you into that universe that you’ve known for 40 years or whatever. In this game we are broadening and developing the L-STAR [a new energy beam rifle – GC] and we’ve got more flavour and personality to the Titans, so I think we’re expanding the scope but it’s still important to us that it’s grounded.

GC: I have many questions from having played the game upstairs, but my first is: I can’t believe anyone doesn’t chose the character with the grapple hook.

All: [laughs]

GC: It was so much fun I had to really force myself to try the others.

MM: I think it’s dependent on the game mode, but we’re only showing one today so the grapple is pretty useful. The Pulse Blade [the radar beacon described above – GC] has some team tactical elements to it, so you can throw it down and your whole team will see where enemies are. So there is some reward there, from people who are looking for more team-focused competitive play. But the grapple is really fun, yeah. [laughs]

GC: There were a couple of dudebros playing alongside me [EA’s E3 event was open to the public – GC] and they seemed amazed and excited about just about everything that happened.

All: [laughs]

GC: It was fascinating actually, to hear them discovering each element like the grapple, and how to access a Titan. They’d clearly never played the game before, so it was quite a validation for how accessible it is.

JS: Some people have trouble getting into the movement, and some people get it like that. So I think it’s about making the game accessible, but with a level of mastery on top of that. You can play it easily, but it will take you longer to get really, really good.

GC: I guess those guys were probably fairly keen gamers, but how do you go about teaching new players how to play the game properly? Is that something you’re going to use the campaign for?

MM: It’s not the core goal of the single-player, but those mechanics are unfolded over time and you learn about the different Titan types and their abilities.

VZ: The best way to play is as slices of life, like single-player is these points from multiplayer but focused and with everything else blocked out. Like taking an element from the game and giving it its chance to shine. It’s like exposure, if you’re getting exposed to the variety of the Titanfall universe in selected moments. And then you go into the multiplayer and it’s all at once.

People learn at different rates. And it would be a lot to expect someone to just play our game for half an hour and be a master of all. So we run that tightrope between dumbing down the mechanics and keeping them deep but potentially taking longer to learn. So, one of the benefits of having a campaign is that you can learn things at your own pace, and hopefully that does translate into more people being able to jump into the multiplayer more effectively.

GC: I think the other general complaint about the original was the lack of game modes and the unusually short half-life of the multiplayer in general. How are you addressing that in the sequel and how many new modes are there in total?

JS: I don’t think we’re saying exactly how many at the moment, but that’s certainly a big issue for us. We heard the concerns about burning through the content too quickly. But I don’t think just more modes necessarily makes the game better, it’s the depth of the experience. So it’s about how you unfold the experience and what can players do to unlock different things and work through the progression system, which is completely revamped. I think we’ve done a much better job on that than previously.

GC: How does the new progression system work, is that more Call Of Duty influenced?

VZ: We play Clash Royale a lot, so everything’s an influence. Call Of Duty was influenced by MMOs…

TS: About a year ago we picked up Todd Alderman, who we used to work with on Call Of Duty, he was the multiplayer designer. He’s back now, and so what we did was break the game down to its fundamentals and rebuilt it with what we learned from the previous title. So that shows up in a lot of the tweaks and tuning that might not be fully obvious from the first play sessions. But over extended time it should be a more sustainable experience that doesn’t exhaust, like the previous game did, and has more longevity.

GC: So have you said how many new robot designs there are?

MM: Six Titans.

GC: Six new ones or six in total?

MM: Six total, all-new.

GC: That’s great. As far as I’m concerned there’s no game that’s not improved by the inclusion of a giant robot.

All: [laughs]

Titanfall 2 – more robots and more story

GC: Although it seemed to take longer for them to arrive than I remember from the first game? And it’s no longer on a timer?

MM: There’s Todd! Todd, come here and answer that question!

(Lead multiplayer designer Todd Alderman enters the room, and sits down with the rest of us.)

TA: Ah. We wanted the Titans to feel like a reward, and with the timer it sort of made that into a neutral. So we wanted to push players to play the game in a certain way, with more counter-play and communication. So we came up with a system where every action you do is filling the meter to get your Titan. So depending on what mode you’re playing, some actions… like, if it’s a defence mode then if you’re defending you’ll get more points because it helps the team more, and that will get you to your Titan faster. So you’re still getting your Titans like you would in the last game, but now it feels like it’s actually a reward and it’s a lot more satisfying.

GC: So it becomes mostly pilots at the beginning and then mostly Titans at the end?

TA: It depends on the mode. Modes have slightly different rules.

GC: Yeah, I guess the Bounty Hunt one was waved-based, so that made a big difference.

TA: Exactly. Some start where there’s not many Titans and then it escalates and by the end it’s all Titans. Others it’s just wave-based, it depends what mode it is.

VZ: He was asking previously about what we’ve done to give the game more depth in the player progression.

TA: Oh, wow! [laughs]

GC: If you could just sum up a year’s work in a sentence or two.

TA: [laughs] I think through the progression system we sort of give you a lot of different tracks, and a lot of different rewards at the end of the tracks that you can decide to go down. Like, if you want to focus on getting special camo for your weapon. If you use that weapon a lot you get rewards for that weapon and you’re gonna get cooler rewards that you can actually show off and say, ‘Hey, look. This guy is really good with this gun!’

And it’s the same sort of thing with Titans. There’s a deep progression system for that, and the overall player has an even deeper progression than that. So there’s all these different things that are coming at you, and things that you can go after, in a not overwhelming way, that gives the game so much to do.

GC: Are the burn cards still in it?

TA: There are some things in the game that were inspired by burn cards, but burn cards proper aren’t in the game right now.

GC: Can I customise my robot now? Can I paint him so he looks like my favourite Transformer?

MM: Yes!

TA: Well, not necessarily. You can’t customise them however you like, but we do have different camos, nose art… so you can do different pieces. [To Zampella] I don’t know how much you want to say?

VZ: Yeah, there’s a lot of camo and nose art and war paint customisation.

GC: That’s a very guarded look on your face! I wonder what you’re trying not to say.

VZ: [laughs] I’m trying to remember myself.

GC: Okay, well that’s great. Thanks very much for your time.

VZ: No problem, thank you.

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