Since the release of Titanfall 2 in 2016, fans have long clamored for a new mainline entry in the franchise. While Apex Legends has filled the gap as a new title within the same universe, fan demand for a proper Titanfall 3 has not quieted down. It appears one designer on the Titanfall series has offered some heartbreaking news regarding this highly requested sequel.
Mohammed Alavi, a former developer at Respawn, sat down for a video interview with YouTube channel THE BURNETTWORK, where the topic of canceled projects came up in discussion. Among the many things they discussed was Titanfall 3, which was apparently in development for nearly a year before Respawn pulled the plug.
Alavi began his discussion on Titanfall 3 with, “You want to hear a crazy cut story? Titanfall 3… Titanfall 2, y’know, came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for… ten months, right? In earnest, right? I mean, we had, like, new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was like, on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right?
“But I’ll make this clear—incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the kicker, right? And we were, like, feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean? And then the multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer because a lot of people love the multiplayer.”
Alavi went on to discuss how the game’s small multiplayer playerbase influenced the team’s decision to pull the plug: “People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer. But 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 a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play for, like, a year, two years,’ right?
“So we were like, trying to fix that, we were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was like, just dying. And then PUBG came out… And… [Respawn designer] Alex Roycewicz was starting to play PUBG. And then [Respawn design director] Geoff [Harrison] started playing PUBG. And then they made a battle royale map with, y’know, Titanfall 3 classes.”
Thus, Alavi confirms that Titanfall 3 did exist at a point and there had been earnest development on it at one time. Most of the struggle to get it out came from the fact that the sequel was only making the smallest of changes to what the first two did, thus making it feel like less of a necessity. The supposed changes to the sequel would not have helped the flagging playerbase.
Finally, Alavi would talk about how the cancellation and pivot toward Apex Legends were done under EA’s noses, stating, “And at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3, I had just pitched the… story, the whole game, that me and [Respawn narrative director] Manny [Hagopian] had come up with, made this big presentation and then we went off a break and went back from break, and we talked about it, and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’
“‘Cause we literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, “We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.” And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall, y’know what I mean? I love that game, Titanfall 2, like I said, is my most crowing achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months!”
And so it goes: another heartbreaking development that’ll serve as a tough-to-swallow pill for the Titanfall fanbase (this writer included). It’s already bad enough that an unannounced single-player Titanfall game was reportedly canned earlier this year, but now, the news of a full sequel being thrown away will cause even more pain.
While it was probably in Respawn’s best interests as a company to turn to Apex Legends, fans will nevertheless continue to clamor for a proper sequel to one of the past generation’s most underappreciated titles. As it is, it looks like players will have to stick to Apex if they want some Titanfall-related gaming in their lives… Sorry, everyone.
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