The last time we wrote about Titanfall 3 on this site was April 2023, which really isn’t that long. So that I am sorry to say that, only a few months later, it is again time to talk about Titanfall 3. More specifically, a designer telling how the game was actually months in development before being kicked out.
If last time hurt because it was about the potential for a future game, this one hurts even more because it’s a game that could have been. In an interview with The Burnettwork (via Insider game)veteran designer Mohammad Alavi, who only recently left Respawn after spending more than a decade there— recounts what happened at the studio in the days that followed Titanfall 2 release:
Want to hear a crazy cut story? Titanfall 3… you know, titanfall 2, came out, did what he did, and we were like, ‘Alright, let’s do Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, LAW? Seriously, right? I mean we had new technology for that, we had several missions going on, we had a first playable one, which was like, tied for being just as good if not better than anything we had before, right? But I will clarify this: gradually better, it was not revolutionary. And that’s the kicker, right? And we were feeling pretty good about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were doing something groundbreaking, you know what i mean?
Alavi also says that the multiplayer team had issues, as the feel of the game as it was was “too”, that everything was “increased up to 11″ and players”wears out a bit quickly”. But in the end, he says that what really killed Titanfall 3 was the fact that – having been influenced by the release of PUBGand see huge internals porting success Titanfall mechanical to a Battle Royale map—what the team planned to add to the series started to sound better like its own game:
And back then I had literally just become lead narrative designer on Titanfall 3, I had just pitched the mission, the story, whole game, only me and Manny [Hagopian] imagined, made this big presentation, then we took a break, and then we came back from the break, and we talked about it, and we were like, ‘Yes, we need to pivot. And we have to create this game”. beak‘Cause we literally canceled titanfall 3 be ourselves’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it will 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’ll always miss having another Titanfall, you ‘know what I mean? I love this game, Titanfall 2 as I said is my greatest achievement, but it was the right choice. It’s a crazy cut. A cut so crazy that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months, until we had another working prototype we could show them!
This is sort of the saddest story possible to read about the demise of the game, but also the most understandable. I know it’s part of the furniture now, so much so that unless you’re super into it (and millions are!) you might even forget it exists, but i remember the first week Apex Legends came out and that shit was amusing. I don’t think there’s a studio in the world that wouldn’t have done the same pivot, at that time, if given the opportunity.
Yet…allow us, once again, to wallow in our sadness, for as amusing as Apex Legends was/is, it doesn’t have huge mechs falling from the sky, and it doesn’t have a single-player campaign where you move through time.
Here’s the full interview if you want to check it out: