Respawn are "thinking about Titanfall a lot," even if it’s to serve Apex Legends
Callbacks must be "thoughtful and respectful," says Apex narrative chief
Like many Titanfall enjoyers, I look at the gleaming success of battle royale spinoff Apex Legends with both a smidge of pride and a gutful of sadness that I haven’t had any wall-running, mech-dropping FPS adventures since. Indeed, an unannounced single-player Titanfall game was quietly shelved last year, and if there’s any burning sense of unfinished business among series devs Respawn Entertainment, it wasn’t evident during my recent visit to try out Apex Legends’ Season 20 update.
Even so, it turns out some still carry the fire, at least as source of inspiration for Apex lore and mechanics. I asked Respawn’s narrative lead Ashley Reed whether Titanfall was keeping in anyone’s minds, and was told that if anything, the references need reining in.
"We're big Titanfall fans ourselves, we really love it," Reed explained. "We're often pretty dorky and will reach back into Titanfall to pull stuff up for Apex. Honestly, more often than you see in the final game, because sometimes we're like, 'Hey, knock it off, you're just being nostalgic, stop it.' It has to make sense."
It’s not hard to pick out examples: numerous playable Legends have close links to people and places from the Titanfall duology (Wraith, Valkyrie, Horizon), or have previously appeared themselves (Ash), while half the weapon arsenal in Apex was lifted across as well. In this instance Reed points to Conduit, Apex’s newest Legend and a walking Titanfall 2 throwback, having gained bioelectric shield-boosting powers from rummaging around a wrecked TF2-era titan.
"Conduit’s kit was actually based off the Monarch titan, and we looked at that said 'Okay, there's juice in this,' both from a design perspective and from a narrative perspective. Then we said 'That marriage works, that is a good use of this, we will bring it in.' So we are thinking about Titanfall a lot, but we want to make sure that when we bring it in, it's thoughtful and respectful of the original intention and does fit with the vision of the post-Frontier."
I imagine this outlook provides limited comfort to anyone who’s spent the past seven years trying to will a whole-new Titanfall into being. Personally, I’m choosing to cling – however naively – to the knowledge that the original series is still thought highly of by Respawn staff, and that an opposite lack of enthusiasm would spell a far more permanent doom than any single cancelled prototype. Besides, I wanted a new Tribes game for a decade, and now we have Tribes 3 Rivals, so there’s still hope here too, right? Right?