TitanFall has been revealed to be Respawn Entertainment’s first game today. A member over at NeoGaf has received the July issue of Game Informer early and the issue blows the lid on what we now know as TitanFall. TitanFall is a sci-fi shooter allowing players to use Mech’s known as Titans. As of now the game is in development for the Xbox One and PC, however there may also be an Xbox 360 port handled by a separate team.
According to the notes, Respawn originally wanted to create a current-gen game but realized their engine wasn’t compatible. They then inquired to Microsoft and liked the response they got. TitanFall is said to make heavy use of the Xbox One’s cloud functionality. Below is a list of interesting details about the game:
– Xbox One, PC
– Xbox 360 version developed by someone else
– Planned to target current gen, but realized that they couldn’t run it
– Started to look into next gen and the answer they got from Microsoft intrigued them
– They said they needed to focus on fewer hardware. In the future they are open to more. They don’t specify if it would be this project or another.
– Plan to use Microsoft’s Cloud for dedicated servers and physics and AI calculations
– Campaign Multiplayer, “traditional” multiplayer mode, and a “One-Player Mode”.
– Spring 2014 Release Date
– There are a good amount of screens. In my opinion it visually looks pretty nice.
– First person shooter
– “Mech” and ground combat
– “Mech’s” are called Titans.
– They want these Titans to feel fast. They can dodge etc.
– If you don’t want to pilot the Titan you can have it follow you, killing people as it goes along.
– Player characters are called Pilots (male and female)
– They are extremely agile. Can run on walls, multiple jumps.
– They can take down Titans. Jumping on them and shooting the “brain”.
– You need to be cunning as a pilot. “Hit and fade” tactics is the term the game director uses.
– Pilots come equipped with a variety of weapons. Pistol, Assault Rifle, Anti-Titan Rocket Launcher, data knife used to hack AI characters into joining you.
– There are AI enemies on the maps.
– You survive longer than in COD. Making it more welcoming to newcomers.
– Source Engine. Building new engine = too much time.
– Source gives them 60 fps
– Modified Source – “Rewriting major portions of it”.
– Article talks about the process of forming the team, being fired, prototyping ideas etc. I recommend reading it.
– Going for a District 9 or Blade Runner vibe.
– Integrate memorable single player moments into a multiplayer game.
– Storytelling style will be more Left 4 Dead.
– Humans segregated between Earth and frontier planets. Corporation trying to take the resources of these frontier people.
– Progression system. No details yet
There was also a quote on Respawn’s reasoning behind the Xbox console exclusivity. “They thought working on PS4, Xbox One and PC would prove too difficult for a small team, so they decided to focus on one console instead of two. (er…). “Not to say we won’t [go multiplatform] in the future, but for our first game we wanted to focus on making the best game we could.” – When Game Informer asked them about developing on next-gen specs Respawn gave some very insightful answers. It goes to show that the limits of these consoles won’t be reached for years.
GI points how that the Xbox One has 5GB of GDDR3 ram available to devs, whereas PS4 has 8GB DDR5 ram, and asks if that’s a problem for Respawn. He says they’re having trouble even using the 5GB efficiently with all the new architecture tricks. (that is to say, even if they had 8GB they wouldn’t know how to use it properly at this stage of development)
GI: “What XBox One lacks in RAM, it potentially makes up for in cloud computing.” Talks about how the game will have unlimited dedicated servers for the game, offloading “a few dozen AI” and physics, says the game would be impossible without the cloud and wouldn’t have attempted it. Still dealing with unfinished hardware and software, so it’s “still a little rough going at times.”
There’s lots more information in the original Gaf thread so be sure to check it out. No doubt we’ll be hearing much more about TitanFall next week at E3, so be on the look out for more details here at The Koalition.
