Titanfall 2 was the surprise shooter release of 2016. Overshadowed in sales by it's close release to EA's blockbuster Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2 still managed to sweep critics away with its well crafted single player campaign and tight, high-octane multiplayer. Our own reviewer, Alex Santa Maria, was similarly impressed and gave the game a 9.5 in his review, one of our highest scores of the year. Prior to the game's release, developer Respawn Entertainment made the unexpected announcement that all planned updates to the game would be free for all players. They delivered their first piece of content back in November with 'Angel City's Most Wanted' and on Friday The Titanfall 2 community was buzzing again as the developers teased the announcement of the second DLC drop via twitter.

Shortly after this tweet, the official Titanfall 2 site was updated with news of the game's next free DLC which is being referred to as 'Live Fire' - the name of the new game mode that it will add. Live Fire is a new Pilot v Pilot mode for two teams of six players. Rounds will only take a maximum of one minute with no respawns and the first team to eliminate all opponents wins. The notes from the developer state that there will be a 'neutral flag' which will grant victory to the team holding it when time runs out if no winner has been decided. Two new maps are being added in with the update to accommodate the new mode; 'Stacks' and 'Meadow.' These maps will be of a much smaller design than we have seen in the Titan-friendly wide open areas so far and will focus on Pilot maneuverability and verticality to create fast-paced, contained 'death boxes' suitable for the shorter PvP bouts.

That's not all, either, as the extensive notes also go on to say that a new map called 'Columns' will be added to Coliseum mode (the game's 1 v 1 dueling arena) as well as a new pilot execution, new commander introductions for the various factions, and a redesigned interface for the multiplayer mode select screen. The new interface is interesting as it potentially solves the problem of game modes being split between two separate screens as they currently are. It will also allow players to setup their own custom queues similar to the 'Mixtape' option currently offered by default but with the crucial difference that players will be able to select which game modes they want to queue for. Respawn even posted a concept image for the new interface, as seen below.

No firm release date has yet been announced for the update, though the developer has suggested that it may come to PC before console. Presumably, this will be intended to gain feedback from the community before rolling out on consoles where it is notoriously trickier to iterate and make small changes once an update is live. Finally, Respawn closed out their announcement with a tantalizing tease of an upcoming 'road map' of updates for the next few months, apparently including more remastered maps from the original Titanfall (as we saw with the previously released Angel City map).

Are you still playing Titanfall 2? Does the prospect of ongoing free updates make you more likely to stick with the game in the long-term? Let us know what you think of the announcement, or just brag about your Pilot skills, in the comments below.