Titanfall 2 — the experience

Titanfall 2 is the latest game from Respawn Entertainment. Titanfall 2 is a sequel to Titanfall released back in 2014.

The new game consists of a capable multiplayer shooter and a standalone story campaign that spans across a desperate struggle to resist the overwhelming power of the enemy. More about multiplayer later as I want to focus on the strong single-player campaign first.

I played the single-player campaign first, almost immediately after unlocking the game on Origin. I couldn’t finish it in one sitting but by the time I ended my second session with Titanfall 2, I was done with the main campaign. The story is clever and the environment varied enough to keep you engaged throughout most of the game. Gameplay and game-feel is taken to extreme polish and the game feels very complete — it’s a full package.

Let’s briefly touch on the story of Titanfall 2. It’s a heartwarming story about a fighter and new robot friend he makes in the chaos of war. The game starts out very strong and reaches it’s highpoint (almost literally) rather soon. The ending feels too much like Star Wars and Marvel movies of today with a end-of-the-world-device looming over the “good guys” and so they must stop the device from doing what it does. Why the first part of the game feels so strong is because of the very varied and good level design with gorgeous environments, creatures and architecture.

As I mentioned, mechanically or gameplay wise Titanfall 2 is very competent. This is enforced further with spot on and fun level design and game mechanics that introduce an added layer to an already varied set of gameplay mechanics. For example there is a set of levels that introduce a new tool that changes the gameplay up. It is basically the Titanfall 2 equivalent of HL2-s gravity gun type of environment manipulation freedom, only to discard it right after the area. It honestly felt cool and fit well into that set of levels but since they didn't go too far into that the level and mechanic felt a little bit contrived and almost disconnected from the main thread. This kept me guessing as to where this game was headed and what would come next. It might be difficult to read this without having played the game but I don't want to give any of the game away by spoiling anything. All games are best experienced with out any prior knowledge, I feel.

Titanfall 2 looks and sounds very good. I was happy to see vibrant colors and strong lines in the game design and visuals. Everything was awe-inspiring and I wanted to look around before, during and after firefights — luckily Respawn Entertainment anticipated this so they have divided the levels up adequately, consisting of fierce firefights (either in our outside of your Titan buddy) and down-time where you can take in the environment, play the story and even get immersed. Sound design is very important to games for me and Titanfall 2 has some very good ideas. Weapon sounds are nothing to write home about and do not rival what DICE has done in the past however character voice and especially the voice of your Titan, BT, is incredible. I love a good AI/Robot voice, loved all the voices in DOOM and I do love the voices in Titanfall 2. I found myself turning the speakers up when playing this game.

I feel like I’ve given a short but to the point overview of the overall game but have left the multiplayer for last. Titanfall, the first game, was a multiplayer only game and only released on xbox as a timed exclusive so I never got around to playing it. I was rather confused when I started playing Titanfall 2 multiplayer. I did not understand why at some times I was at the top of the leaderboard and at times I was at the bottom. I didn’t feel like I was good or bad, I just did not understand how scoring worked. I’ve tried a couple of the available multiplayer modes but by far the most popular is the new mode called Bounty Hunt. It’s a mode where both teams try to accumulate dollars by killing AI controlled grunts that spawn on pre-determined locations on the map. What makes this mode challenging and very frustrating at times is the fact that when you are killed by the enemy team you lose exactly 50% of the cash you have collected. Players have to store the cash they collect to Banks but the Banks are closed and only open up between waves of grunts. So it is most likely that a player will die before they reach the bank and thus losing 50% of the dollars they have gathered. So it feels utterly pointless to worry about the cash too much otherwise you would feel worried to die and have to try and sneak around the rather small maps hoping to make it to the bank only to die at the door. You die fast in Titanfall 2.

There are no real classes in Titanfall 2 multiplayer rather you can customize and define your class or role by modifying your character. There are core abilities to choose between as well as boosts. Its all just added variety to give players choices to play how they want to play, some of them gameplay changing and some just cosmetic but changes either way. Same applies to your Titan and weapons. Multiplayer is fast and fierce with much running jumping and gunning. Titans change up the scene quite a bit and offer some cool looking action sets to partake in.

Titanfall 2 is no revolution in gaming history but it is a competently crafted and fun to play game. When you buy it, you get the whole game the beginning the middle and the end. You get all the weapons and all the titans. There are no silly pieces of locked content. What is unfortunate for Titanfall 2 is it’s release date window, its smack down in the middle of Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty Infinite Warfare. So the competition is real, but whoever is looking for alternatives and a stand-alone great game can give Titanfall 2 a go.