Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind Titanfall, Apex Legends, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, is celebrating its tenth anniversary of operation this month with a video and blog post looking back on a very successful decade, and ahead to even bigger things to come.
“If last year is any testament, we plan to continue delivering great new games for our fans to enjoy for years to come. 2019 was one of the most memorable yet, starting with the launch of Apex Legends in February through to the reveal of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond and the release of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order,” Respawn boss Vince Zampella wrote.
“Of course, we can’t forget Titanfall, which is near and dear to everyone here at Respawn, as it’s the franchise that really helped put the studio on the map and show the world the caliber of games that we want to make. Steve Fukuda and team were instrumental in bringing that series to life.”
Unfortunately, despite that nearness and dearness, and the fact that Titanfall 2 is an outstanding shooter, Zampella told IGN that Respawn is not currently working on a new game in the series.
“There’s nothing currently in development,” he said. “But it’s always there. You see the little bits of stuff coming back [through the lore in Apex Legends]. At some point, I would personally like to see some kind of resurrection there. We’ll see if I can make that happen.”
That would seem to run counter to what EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in February 2019, when he dropped word that a new “premium” Titanfall game was in the works and expected out that year. In April, that plan was pushed back so Respawn could focus exclusively on Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and with Fallen Order proving a commercial hit, it’s not surprising that Titanfall has been muscled out.
Despite widespread critical acclaim (and man, it’s really good), Titanfall 2 sales came in significantly lower than expected. Analysts attribute much of that failure to EA’s decision to squeeze the game between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, but with Apex Legends and Fallen Order now looking like sure things, the reasons for Titanfall’s failure don’t really matter.
It’s possible that another EA studio could pick up the Titanfall series: Zampella said that DICE LA, which he also heads up, “is a shooter team” and will probably stick with that genre for its next project, which apparently hasn’t been nailed down yet.
“I don’t want to lock it in and say that’s definitely exactly what they’re doing, because we’re going to look at everything and pick something that feels amazing. The same tenets that apply to Respawn of doing something new and exciting and kind of breaking the genre a little bit is what we’re going to apply to DICE LA. We’re going to look at trying to do something cool,” he said.
“We want to do something that’s not competitive with other EA games so that we’re kind of filling in the right gaps in the portfolio. We have some really good ideas, but it’ll be a little bit [before they make any announcements].”