Every fall, major game releases help wind down the year. Usually, this means a big winner or two is surrounded by others that’ve done respectably well and build a following over time. Pick a year, you probably get what I mean, and one such title in 2016 was Titanfall 2.
The sophomore game from Respawn Entertainment has been highly regarded ever since its release on October 28, 2016, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, often drawing demands of “Play this game!” whenever it goes on sale. (Which, to be fair, is regularly.) Much of that praise is due to its single-player campaign, easily the biggest distinction from its 2014 predecessor. The original Titanfall was multiplayer-only, but had narrative and scripted moments incorporated into matches. Good idea, but any story elements likely got overwhelmed by the chaos of other players, so Respawn decided to give the sequel an actual story to play around with.
When talking about Titanfall 2’s campaign, “it’s not what you say, but how you say it” comes to mind. On paper, rifleman Jack Cooper being forced into piloting the Titan BT-7274 makes for decent sci-fi as they fight the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC). It’s the telling where things really click, though, whether that’s listening to IMC radio chatter or picking Jack’s responses during his and BT’s chats. Some give the cast personality, others are just chuckleworthy, but they’re all like the larger story: solidly told and smart enough to not get in its own way.
A similar restraint exists with BT. So often, robot or digital characters exist to be quippy and show how humanity can exist in other beings, often by becoming more humanlike in ways both good and bad. It’s easy to imagine a game wherein that’s the case with BT, and you can probably imagine how well that would land—the internet loves its buddies, after all. But Respawn doesn’t punch above its weight here; BT’s never elevated beyond his initial narrative function, and whatever growth he has with Jack, the story doesn’t want you to misunderstand what’s happening. They’re friends and also tools for one another to use, and they know this. Now complete the mission.
Shooters typically use their story modes to help prepare players for the multiplayer modes, and Titanfall 2 follows suit. The campaign is a great sandbox for players to get a feel for the game’s core mechanics. Even years later, one of the game’s strengths is how it lets the player feel as great as they’re meant to in-universe, and the movement is a big part of why. The levels have a sense of scale to them, and it’s just so fun and freeing being able to wall-run and slide around areas with ease, or right into BT’s cockpit when it’s time to fight Titan-to-Titan.
If there’s one thing Respawn loves doing, it’s mixing genres. The Star Wars Jedi games take cues from Soulslikes and Metroidvanias, but the studio started testing itself with Titanfall 2. The mid-campaign mission “Effect and Cause” is like a mini-puzzle game in how it asks the player to warp between two time periods to explore a ruined IMC facility. By the team’s account, making this particular mission was a head-scratching nightmare, but that work paid off. The final version was a real sitting-up moment for players, and whether they felt sated or wished it was more of the campaign, “Effect” certainly elevated the game.
Shame, then, that all the acclaim couldn’t save Titanfall 2 from the frankly boneheaded decision to release it between EA’s own Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. While it went on to do well in the long run, that opening month couldn’t have been a worse time for it. In the years since, Respawn’s mainly kept the franchise alive with Apex Legends, the battle royale set in the same universe and with several connections to the previous game. All the while, staff have said that while Titanfall 3 seemed possible at one point, that’s stopped being the case. A now-canceled single-player project codenamed Titanfall Legends is maybe the closest things would get, even if it’s unclear if this was another spinoff or the actual next mainline title.
With Respawn currently split between Apex and the third Jedi game, Titanfall 2 will probably stay a one-and-done for the foreseeable future. Not the first title in recent generations this has happened to, but a disappointment all the same. Fortunately, love for it keeps growing every year—so much, in fact, that a recent VR mod has provided another avenue to experience a pretty rad game.
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