Titanfall, the upcoming multiplayer FPS from Respawn Entertainment, was available for a hands on at this years Eurogamer.
For those who don’t know Titanfall is a multiplayer FPS that incorporates elements of single-player gaming, such as a plot and character development, into potentially huge battles. In Titanfall players take on the role of Pilots equipped with a variety of hand-held weaponry as well as small jet-packs that give increased mobility such as double-jumping and wall runs. The titular Titans are giant armoured suits that Pilots can call in periodically that deal increased damage whilst sacrificing mobility. The studio behind it, Respawn Entertainment, was founded by Jason West and Vince Zampella who were both former senior members of Infinity Ward.
The hands on took the format of a 6v6 match on a mode called “Attrition”, which was basically team deathmatch, with the teams supplemented by bots. This is a feature in the full game too, with different points awarded depending on the kills you get. Bots are worth a mere 75 points, whereas Titans can be worth over 500. After the score limit was reached the losing team has to escape before their evac leaves, whilst the wining team is tasked with wiping them, both for bonus points and xp.
There was a choice of three Pilot classes; Assault, CQB and a Tactical class along with a choice of three loadouts for the giant power-armour dubbed Titans: one with a giant assault rifle, one with a precision grenade launcher and a high explosive variant. We could switch easily between the classes at almost any time so it was easy to get a flavour for them all.
After a short video explain the controls and the concepts behind Titanfall we were dropped straight in. The version on show was, we were told, the PC version being played with Xbox 360 controllers. In terms of visuals, nothing was immediately jaw-dropping. It looked good, there were some nice smoke effects and the animations and detail when entering the Titans were great. There were some fairly rough edges during the introduction and around the levels.
Gameplay wise, and I mean this as a big compliment, it’s very Call of Duty. Coming away the feeling I got was that it was almost a huge mod for Call of Duty. I’m personally not a fan of the CoD series, but there is no denying the talent behind the multiplayer portion and this has been carried over by Respawn Entertainment. Given the history of the studio it’s no surprise that this felt very CoD. I’ve not played any in quite a while, and I’ve never played it with a 360 controller but it was all so familiar and easy to control. Me and Xav had some concerns over the movement, whether the free-running would be too complicated to pull off during a fast paced battle, but they were quickly swept aside. Moving around as a pilot was easy, it was fast and it was fun.
The movement is probably the most noticeable gameplay change. The map seemed to spread upwards after players got the hang of the movement after the first few minutes. It’s the biggest thing that really set it aside from standard Call of Duty for me. I’ll get onto the Titans in a moment, but they’re really just an extension of FPS. For the CoD fans, the movement is going to be the biggest change.
The Titans themselves are fun, if a little clunky at first. I found the basic controls to be intuitive but using some of the secondary weapons were difficult to get the hang of quickly. Getting a Titanfall (the air-drops that deliver the Titans) is simple. You just have to wait. Each player has a countdown whilst their Titan is being built, then it’s just a matter of selecting it similar to a killstreak in CoD. By performing well, getting kills etc, the Titan is built quicker. Over the course of the match lasting about ten minutes I think I piloted a Titan three or four times, doing a lot of damage.
I came away from Titanfall saying “That was awesome”, and it was. It was fast and it was fun. It felt like a Call of Duty to play, which is a very good thing, but it looked, sounded and felt different enough to be something almost totally different. It felt fresh, not a re-hash or re-tread of gruff voiced men and military tropes. I don’t think it’ll be a killer app, not yet anyway. It wouldn’t tempt me to go for an Xbox One over a PS4, but if you are getting an Xbox One you’d be a fool to miss out on it.
Titanfall is set to be relased on Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC sometime in early 2014.
