Highlights

  • Titanfall set a high standard for next-gen FPS games with its innovative gameplay and impressive production values in 2014.
  • Despite the lack of a traditional campaign, Titanfall teased a rich world with warring factions and intriguing narrative elements.
  • Titanfall 2 improved upon its predecessor in every way, becoming a critically acclaimed FPS game, but Titanfall 3 has yet to manifest.

Formed in 2010, Respawn Entertainment is still a relative newcomer to the video game industry, though its origins go much further back. Though Respawn is only about 14 years old, its founders Jason West and Vince Zampella have been in the gaming industry for quite a while longer, with their most famous prior work being as the leads of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward. After some legal disputes with Activision, West and Zampella set out to form their own independent game studio, and thus Respawn was born, along with its debut title, Titanfall.

Released on March 11, 2014 for PC and Xbox One, Titanfall turns 10 years old today. A sci-fi first-person shooter about parkouring around various environments, shooting players, and controlling powerful mechs, Titanfall offered an experience unlike any other at the time, boasting incredibly high production values and very satisfying gameplay mechanics. But Titanfall was only the beginning, the start of a franchise that has unfortunately been sorely underutilized in the last few years.

Titanfall Battlefield Void
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Despite being one of the most beloved sci-fi shooters, a new Titanfall game is not on the horizon, which leaves an opening for Battlefield.

The First Titanfall Laid Some Great Franchise Foundations

Titanfall 10th Anniversary Body

Titanfall Felt Like a Truly Next-Gen First-Person Shooter

Released just a few months into the Xbox One's life, Titanfall presented itself as a true next-generation shooter, and for the most part, it actually lived up to that promise. Though it may have had some texture pop-in issues on release, Titanfall looked and ran very well for the most part, with its technical features complimenting its gameplay very well. It was this gameplay that really made Titanfall stand out back in 2014.

Just a few months prior to Titanfall's release, Call of Duty: Ghosts hit store shelves, disappointing fans across the world with its lackluster campaign, and multiplayer modes that felt like timid recreations of great past entries. By comparison, Titanfall seemed like a breath of fresh air for the genre. Seamlessly blending fluid parkour mechanics with tight shooting mechanics and exhilarating mech combat, Titanfall felt like a big step forward for the first-person shooter genre back in 2014.

Titanfall Teased Some Intriguing World-Building

One of Titanfall's most common criticisms upon its initial release was its campaign, or the lack thereof. While the first Titanfall technically had a single-player mode, it was simply a collection of multiplayer matches in which character dialogue played over the top, essentially giving the illusion that players were working towards a story-based objective. It was definitely a far cry from a traditional narrative campaign. The criticism seems valid a decade later, but Titanfall did manage to tease some intriguing narrative ideas in both its single-player and multiplayer content, gradually building out a world with its warring factions and subtle environmental details.

The Titanfall Series Has Been Left Disappointingly Dormant

The first Titanfall may not have been a perfect first-person shooter, but it was an incredibly impressive first outing for Respawn Entertainment, and a great building block for the start of a new gaming franchise. Thankfully, Titanfall fans didn't have to wait too long for Respawn to deliver a sequel, as Titanfall 2 launched in October 2016, and according to the vast majority of both critics and fans, it improved upon its predecessor in just about every way. Almost eight years later, Titanfall 2 is still considered one of the greatest FPS games around, refining its predecessor's mechanics, delivering a stellar campaign, and polishing out those technical issues.

Though Titanfall 2 wasn't quite the sales juggernaut that EA was expecting it to be, it managed to garner a sizable following of loyal fans, many of whom are desperate for a third installment in the franchise and aren't afraid to be vocal about it. But unfortunately, Titanfall 3 still feels like a pipe dream. Though Apex Legends is continuing to build out the Titanfall universe, its gameplay differs heavily from Titanfall and its beloved sequel. No matter how much the battle royale references those games, it doesn't stop the feeling that Titanfall has been sadly underused.