New Respawn game starts up the Titanfall rumour mill all over again
Alongside Bloodborne, Star Wars 1313, and Bully communities jumping on even the slightest hint that these games will return, Respawn Entertainment has to deal with the ever-ravenous Titanfall community. Yes, we know Apex Legends is set in this world, but it's hardly the same, is it?
We've not had a Titanfall game since the top-down Titanfall: Assault of 2017, but with that being a spin-off, we haven't actually had a 'proper' entry since 2016. Titanfall 2 is held as one of the best first-person shooters out there, and while fans always hope for more, Battle Royale was written in the stars for Respawn.
Respawn is hiring for a new game
The GamingLeaksandRumours subreddit has spotted that Respawn Entertainment is hiring a Game Design Director for its incubation team, which is supposedly starting work on a new project. The ideal candidate needs "significant professional experience designing Multiplayer FPS experiences."
This could be literally anything, but as with all things Respawn, some have immediately defaulted to Titanfall 3. It comes off the back of a March rumour claiming Respawn's next game will be set in the Titanfall universe.
We'd like to add that being set in the Titanfall universe suggests it will be another Apex-esque game instead of full-blown Titanfall 3. As you can imagine, the Reddit comments included a lot of the Jeremy Renner, "Don't give me hope," meme.
One sceptic added, "There will never be a Titanfall game so long Apex exist, this is probably something new entirely," while another said, "It reads like NEW new, not Titanfall related. If that's the case I feel like Titanfall would be truly dead.
"Putting out a new MP FPS that's Apex adjacent pretty much covers you in that department." A third joked, "Now announcing...Apex 2." Remembering how Respawn cancelled the proposed Titanfall x Apex crossover (codenamed Titanfall Legends), you'll excuse us for tempering our expectations.
What happened to Titanfall 3?
Even though Titanfall 3 was a long way from being released, we know it was in the works at one time. Former Titanfall designer Mohammad Alavi said it was Respawn itself that pulled the plug after working "in earnest" for 10 months.
Ultimately, Alavi said the multiplayer team was struggling to address issues from the first two Titanfall games, with him adding, "People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer. But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people—and most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it's really good, but it's just too much.
"It's cranked up to 11 and they burn out of it fast. They're like, 'That was a great multiplayer, [but] that's not something I can continually play for a year or two years." PUBG came along and apparently changed everything. With the emergence of the battle royale genre, Respawn canned Titanfall and made Apex as a BR spin-off.
For now, it seems the mechs have been left to rust, as Apex Legends remains Respawn's breadwinner. Still, hope lives on. EA saying we might get a new Titanfall if we believe in it hard enough, or every Titanfall anniversary sparking hope of a rival, does nothing to dampen these dreams.