Titanfall 2 was released back on Oct. 28, 2016, and garnered the attention of many devout fans of Respawn, hoping to one day see the next entry in their series. Despite many rumors surrounding the possible existence of Titanfall 3, there was never any clear evidence of its development-until now.
YouTube channel THE BURNETTWORK conducted a recent interview with Mohammad Alavi, former narrative lead designer at Respawn, revealing the rumors were true: Titanfall 3 was in active development at Respawn, and had been in active development for 10 months before the studio switched gears to focus on Apex Legends.
When coming up with ideas for Titanfall 3, Alavi recalled the difficulties in trying to fix the multiplayer and make it more accessible to a wider audience. "Most people who play Titanfall 2 multiplayer thought of it as really good, but it was too much. It's cranked up to 11, and they burn out of it fast. That was a great multiplayer, but not something I can continually play for a year or two years."
Related: Titans, Blisk, and wall-running: Every feature from scrapped Apex single-player game we'll never get now
"The multiplayer team was dying, and then PUBG came out." Alavi laughs, going on to include how Respawn devs internally started taking ideas from the battle royale, including making their own spin of the game mode internally. "I don't know if you remember Alex Roycewicz but [he] was starting to play PUBG. And then Geoff started playing PUBG. They made a battle royale map with Titanfall 3 classes. We were testing the other modes. Regular, attrition, Titanfall modes. 10 people would play those, and 100 would play the battle royale mode."
"Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game," said Alavi. "We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves 'cause we were like, "We can make this game, and it's going to 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 will always miss having another Titanfall, y'know what I mean?"
Alavi considers Titanfall 2 his "crowning achievement", but as painful as the idea sounded at the time, he admitted it was the "right call" to cease production of the game's sequel and opt into a battle royale. "That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn't even know about it for another six months!"
Alavi continued the interview by talking about his promotion to narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3, and despite pitching the story of the entire game to his team after returning from a break, he agreed with Respawn's narrative director Manny Hagiopian that a change was needed in Titanfall 3's development. They ultimately decided to cut development on the game altogether and focus all resources instead on making a battle royale game set inside the Titanfall universe.
Related: Respawn keeps Titanfall 3 hopes alive: 'Who knows what the future holds.'
The shadow drop of Apex Legends on Feb. 4, 2019, shocked the world, as the game immediately went live on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Origin on PC, as millions of players watched and subsequently played the hit new battle royale. The studio's choice to make Apex Legends has borne fruit for all four years of its lifespan, even breaking records for player count with some of the most recent seasons.
As for the future of Titanfall 3, fans will have to continue waiting for brighter news, as Respawn sets its eyes on creating new IPs instead of further developing the Titanfall universe.