Why Titanfall Is My Game of E3 2013

Respawn's debut is as impressive as they come.

I love every loud, dumb, mainstream multiplayer military shooter I can get my hands on. Call of Duty. Halo. Battlefield. I love them because they’re great, absolutely. But I fall for ‘em mostly because they’re predictable, comfortable, familiar.
Titanfall is not those three things.
Elements of the online-only next-gen action game draw from what we know and adore about major multiplayer games on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, but Titanfall turns expectations inside out with a refreshing intensity, creativity, and aggression that will reinvigorate a genre that’s barely started slipping.

In the five or so minutes of footage we’ve seen, and brief hands-on IGN had with it, Titanfall showcased an enormous amount of possibility. Its lengthy list of gameplay systems allow for a ton of emergent scenarios – in a given moment, you’ll see someone ejecting from a Titan, jet-packing onto a teammate’s robot, capturing control-points with the aid of A.I. allies, running on walls to avoid enemy fire, and decimating a group of guys with a satchel charge. Titanfall’s combat creativity, systemic variety, and rapid mobility constantly surprised me. Anything could happen at any moment, and what did wasn’t what I expected.
The complex level design goes a long way to support pilot play in addition to Titan combat. Open spaces leave the robot powerhouses exposed to the men and women wall-running around them and spiraling down the rabbit hole of an obliterated building. Winding indoor paths have you looking over your shoulder for someone sneaking up on you, getting the drop from above, or setting traps around the corner.

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Everything in Titanfall is dynamic, real-time, and happening as a result of another human player.

Visual stimulation in Titanfall borders on overwhelming, in the same sense of a spectacular scripted single-player sequence. The fact that everything in Titanfall is dynamic, real-time, and happening as a result of another human player is incredibly impressive. With enough firepower, players can tear ships out of the sky and bring them crashing into the earth while Titans drop from space and onto soldiers. In an epilogue to Hardpoint matches, groups sprint to an escape ship, their enemies hot on their heels and angry with their defeat.

Small but significant details like this strengthen a shooter with a fantastic foundation for its core mechanics. Plus, there are badass robots, gorgeous graphics, 60 frames-per-second gameplay, and clever sci-fi weaponry, like a pistol that auto-locks to dudes’ faces.
Titanfall is my E3 2013 Game of the Show because it defied my expectations as a hardcore multiplayer guy at every turn. Going in, I expected it to be nothing more than “Call of Duty with anime robots.” It wasn’t until seeing it that I realized that is the stuff dreams are made of – and then Titanfall went above and beyond that reductive concept with innovative ideas that pull me outside my comfort zone. It's also so much more than your usual E3 demos, which are canned, scripted, stiff, and perfect -- Respawn wasn't afraid of letting its Titanfall matches going a little south, and letting it show what a real fight is like out there in the future of modern warfare.

Titanfall

Published by: Electronic Arts

Developed by: Respawn Entertainment

Genre: Shooter

Release Date:

United States: Q2 2014

Australia: Q2 2014

UK: Q2 2014

RP-T+ for Rating Pending, Targeting a Rating of Teen or Above

Also Available On: Xbox One, Xbox 360