Titanfall Towers Over E3 Premieres

Respawn Entertainment’s exciting new IP, Titanfall, debuted at E3 this week and blew audiences away. This ambitious FPS will feature two distinctly different forms of gameplay which involve both large and small scale combat.

Initially, players will encounter a small scale game with the maneuverable and fast-moving pilots. Once they’ve acquired a few kills, the option for large scale gameplay opens up through the Titans, which are fast and powerful war mechs. According to developers, the most interesting—and important—aspect of these dual game modes is what happens when the two scales collide.

The E3 demo level took the form of a usual capture-the-flag scenario. Opposing teams were tasked with claiming and defending three hardpoints for a set duration of time, and the acquisition of these hardpoints along with certain gameplay achievements (such as enemy kills) affected the teams’ scores and propelled them towards victory.

This usual multiplayer fare served as the backdrop for a more story-based purpose. The pilots were called to defend a ship called the Redeye, which was bringing fuel to a hotzone before departing. Part of Respawn’s goal behind making a game like Titanfall was to take handcrafted, cinematic moments and put them into a multiplayer experience, and the objectives of the level (the capture-the-flag gameplay and defense of the Redeye) certainly work to that purpose.

The former creators of Call of Duty also brought together the dual scales of the game with great success. The combat was quick, ferocious and sleek, and it used the size difference between pilot and mech to innovate—rather than restrict—the gameplay. Early on in the demo, a pilot single-handedly gunned down an enemy Titan, revealing the fallibility of the hulking mechs. Pilots combating their larger-than-life enemies could utilize the boost-jumping and wall running abilities to give them the benefit of an aerial assault. Even a pilot ejecting from a wrecked Titan could be deadly. If left unchecked, the pilot may land atop a Titan and sabotage it, leaving behind smoldering debris where a mech once stood. This is only possible if a sharp-eyed Titan doesn’t gun down the ejecting pilot mid-flight.

There was also a similar degree of ingenuity with interactions between Titans and friendly pilots. Titans could “give a lift” to ally pilots, allowing pilots to ride on their shoulders and assist with gunning down enemies. Though this was the extent of such cooperative features exhibited during the demo, it’s entirely possible that Respawn will incorporate additional interactions between allied Titans and pilots prior to the game’s launch.

A carefully constructed environment allowed for flexible combat between Titans, pilots, and any combination of the two. There were a variety of smaller, indoor areas that allowed for fast and dirty conflicts between pilots. The game’s diverse set of weapons and strategies ensured that the ingenuity of the game was not lacking even in these more traditional settings. Players had the option of choosing between customary rifles and more dramatic lightning guns. Though the combat itself was fast and explosive, Respawn has scarcely neglected gamers who prefer a more stealthy approach; when one player managed to sneak up, undetected, behind an enemy pilot, they were rewarded with a gruesome neck-snapping animation. 

The more open spaces on the map allowed for intense Titan on Titan combat. If their original Titan is defeated, a pilot could request a new Titan every two minutes. This Titan could only be engaged by the pilot requesting it, which further aids the balance of combat by ensuring that the Titan falls are equally distributed over the two teams.  As with the pilots, the Titans could be equipped with different loadouts. Defensive maneuvers included a bullet stopping force-field that could then be unleashed back on opponents. In close range, one Titan could reach inside the other to tear out the enemy pilot and toss them aside like a ragdoll.

These features combined made for impressively balanced and varied gameplay. The transitions between mech warfare and more traditional FPS gameplay were seamless, as were the interactions between Titans and pilots despite that aforementioned difference in scale. Titanfall seems poised to revolutionize the multiplayer FPS genre, and it is set to fall onto Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC in Spring 2014.