Titanfall 2 Review

In the never-ending FPS bombardment of the industry by just about every major developer these days, we’ve come to a point where many share similar gameplay mechanics. For many people the purchasing decision continues to be based on what their friends are getting, so you’d think at this point even among the big AAA players there must be a need to differentiate – a way to convince people to perhaps cross borders so to speak.

Respawn Entertainment took a leap in that regard when it brought the hypermobile, mecha-inspired Titanfall to the table back in 2014. Unfortunately for the new IP, a lot of folks got all they needed to out of the substantial open beta. Once they discovered the full game was to be quite limited in scope, the community stalled out and the shooter became far more of a cult hit than Respawn likely ever imagined or wished it to be. There was a lot of feedback thrown around for a good long time and as Titanfall 2 was announced, Respawn made it a point to mention they were listening loud and clear.  Now that it’s finally arrived, Titanfall 2 aims to break out of that cult status and go directly head to head-with the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Likely the most talked about feature of Titanfall 2 is the single-player campaign. Certainly, the first game experienced a great deal of backlash over the lack of even a modest campaign to make the price of entry easier to swallow and so the inclusion of a campaign in the sequel will be a great attraction to many. The even better news for those who are interested is that the campaign is surprisingly satisfying.

You take on the role of Jack Cooper, a stereotypical underdog of sorts who aspires to one day ascend to the rank of Pilot so he too can run around in a super awesome robot friend. Just as you’re about to finish showing your superiors you have what it takes, the IMC (see: bad dudes) decide to kick up a fuss on the nearby planet of Typhon. In a plot twist, you and everyone else will see coming, your mentor and his Titan nicknamed BT are compromised in combat, and for the first time a Titan chooses its new pilot. From there you and BT take up the charge of completing the original mission which of course spirals wildly out of control and becomes infinitely more complex than expected.

The general story and storytelling are pretty run-of-the-mill but provide the more important service of setting up some fun gameplay moments and set pieces. BT as a character is sure to be popular in his stereotypically deadpan, sarcastic robot ways. You’ll likely get a kick out of your occasional conversations with BT which in a surprising twist include choices for responses. It’s usually just enough to fill the gaps when getting from point A to point B when no enemies are ruining your day and keeps things moving at a good pace. There’s not a lot else going on besides that, but you do have some collectibles in the form of other soldier’s helmets, as well as some audio logs for those who want to tie the threads of the story together more thoroughly.

The campaign will run you somewhere between 5 and 10 hours depending on difficulty, play speed, and how much exploring you do for those helmets. It plays well, gets you largely accustomed to the controls before you hop into multiplayer, and even has a satisfying ending. For the first crack at a campaign in the Titanfall universe, I don’t think I could ask for much more. It’s not going to necessarily blow your hair back at every corner and it’s certainly not fleshed out or dense enough to justify purchasing the game solely for it, but it adds value where none existed previously.

The vast majority of people are going to be buying Titanfall 2 for its multiplayer and so the real meat of the game resides in just that. While Respawn listened to the fans and made some key changes the hardcore folks were looking for, its biggest problems are more external to the game itself which we’ll get to later.

There is a great deal of choice to be had in Titanfall 2 when it comes to multiplayer. The game types are plenty, and cover everything from your standard deathmatch variants to objective-based modes like capture the flag or king of the hill. Within that list, the standout must be Last Titan Standing whereby everyone starts in their Titan, and while you may get out of your Titan, you only get one life per round. The winner is whichever team kills the other entirely, or has the most Titans remaining come the end of the time limit. It’s crazy, it’s hectic, and perhaps most importantly allows for a lot of team strategy in both how you play and which Titans you choose. It’s a lot of fun and despite essentially just being a deathmatch, was different enough to make me want to keep playing.

Of course, the game wouldn’t be very good if it didn’t control well, but thankfully Titanfall 2 controls beautifully. Other titles like Call of Duty have attempted to recreate elements of the signature fluidic gameplay that Titanfall employs but I don’t think anyone has done it as well as Respawn. It doesn’t take very long before you stop thinking about what you’re trying to do to get from point A to point B and instead just do it instinctively. There is a great deal of satisfaction derived from smoothly traversing the levels, and it never gets old. The new grappling hook you can bring into combat makes it even crazier and so much more fun I couldn’t bring myself to swap it out for another tool. It’s not perfect of course, and you will get some quirky maneuvers occasionally but it’s absolutely impressive in its polish.

Gunplay is also satisfying but despite a relatively wide range of weaponry at your disposal they all handle about the same or serve a similar enough purpose that I found it hard to want to use more than a few weapons available. There have also been some questions about balance in the weapons in combination with some skills like cloak but I believe the imbalance is worse for other reasons – chiefly the level barriers. Some games can get away with putting not just upgrades and cosmetics behind level walls but also weapons. Titanfall 2 is not one of those games. There is a severe and noticeable gap between weapon and ability strength at the entry levels and those who have ranked up. The difference can be as drastic as one shot one kill, and that’s not a great way to keep new players coming back when they’re spending more time dead than alive. I’d personally have preferred it if they simply left weapon addons and cosmetic items for the level rewards but that’s unlikely to change.

Other major questions people had going into Titanfall 2 were related to the smart pistol, the AI combatants, and the expansion of Titan selection. I personally never ran into the smart pistol during my time with the game, and those I spoke with who had said it’s not the massive headache it was in the first game. The AI combatants are still definitely a thing in many game modes, but they aren’t in all of them, and the selection and class separation of Titans is far better this time around.

As far as the audiovisual quality of the game, like most modern FPS titles it’s easy on the eyes and almost always buttery smooth. On the PC I didn’t experience any major bugs or fps drops as I have in many other new releases. Textures aren’t particularly amazing, and the general fidelity of models isn’t mind-blowing but at the speed this game happens at you’re unlikely to ever notice. What you will unquestionably notice is the audio. Gun sounds are super satisfying, as is almost every other sound in the game, to be honest. The soundtrack is also quite nice though I’ve not been truly blown away by a shooter’s soundtrack since Halo.

“So, Adam,” you might say, “This is sounding like a pretty solid game, is there anything really bad about it?” To which I’d respond, “Yes, but not for reasons you’d likely imagine.”

You see, the player base is a bit thin. On the PC it’s about as thin as Colin Mochrie’s hair. On consoles, it’s not nearly as anemic but it’s still barely cracking 36,000 concurrent active on Xbox One where most players reside as of this review. PC sits around 11,000 and PS4 around 26,000. Those aren’t great numbers, and when you take into consideration how many playlists this game has, wait times to get into a game can be rough. This is made worse by the fact that as of this writing, some multiplayer game modes are hidden behind an arrow to change screens. I didn’t even know some modes existed for many hours because of this. These issues are made far worse thanks to EA making one of the worst calls in recent memory.

Someone at EA needs to be fired. Now I’m sure that could be a list more than a few lines long but whoever decided to release Titanfall 2 dead smack in the middle of the releases of Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare should be mopping floors somewhere. There have been myriad reasons both given by the big wigs and theorized by the community as to why this happened but the results are the same. Titanfall 2 needed a window where it wasn’t going head-to-head with those two titles. It needed a chance for those on the fence to not have to make such financially straining decisions. This game should have seen an early 2017 release and wouldn’t have suffered an ounce for it. It’d probably be far better off than it is now. Sales have suffered in a big way, and it’s not for a lack of a great game or good marketing. In fact one of the best selling points of the game is that it will be getting all free DLC – no season pass. That’s a huge bonus and should be very enticing to gamers on a budget. I think most of us can agree that the season pass deal has gotten a bit out of control lately. Battlefield 1 almost becomes a $200 CAD game if you pick up the Ultimate Edition that includes the season pass. Crazy.

With that being said, there’s still a chance that Titanfall 2 sells well in the new year and the player base picks up. The majority of people I know who play it consistently have nothing but great things to say about it and so I imagine that kind of sentiment will spread. It’s odd to review a game and have a hard time talking about it without making it sound like an early funeral, but it’s something that needs to be mentioned.

Titanfall 2 is a very solid shooter. It provides a mostly exciting if not only serviceable single-player campaign, and a fleshed-out and more mature multiplayer experience than its predecessor. It has little truly bad elements to mention, and the most heinous of them isn’t even technically about the game itself. If you’re looking for an alternative to the Call of Duty train, I can absolutely recommend giving Titanfall 2 a chance. Keep in mind the player bases on each platform of course, but it’s a great experience. Bring some friends with you if you can, and go play with some robots. Robots are fun.