with all the talk about Titanfall 3 and the amazing community that has rallied around the
thought the premise the hope that the TitanFall franchise will continue I wanted to take a second
and look back in retrospect despite Call of Duty being incredibly hit or miss with its own
Community for over a decade it never really has given up that top spot in the mainstream console
FPS World it hasn't but that's not to say nobody has tried to Dethrone it throughout the years
there have been a lot of new games and franchises developed with the explicit goal of taking Call of
Duty off the top of the mountain and if there was one that actually deserved to do it I think it was
Titanfall the Sci-Fi FPS franchise debuted in 2014 it got off to a rocky start but it peaked in 2016
and if you ask me it deserved to become the top first person shooter in the world unfortunately
a series of horrible circumstances kept it from Ever Getting even close to the success it was
owed and to this day seven years after its launch we still have a lot of people across the internet
begging the developers to make a follow-up welcome to the channel everybody chaos here today we are
taking a deep dive into Titanfall 2. what made it so great why it actually failed and how much
of an absolute tragedy it actually was be sure to let me know in the comments if you want a third
Titanfall game drop a like on the video stick around for the entire one because this is going
to be an absolute Journey now we can't talk about Titanfall 2 without talking about the minds behind
it and where they actually came from Titanfall was a brainchild of respawn entertainment which
is a studio whose formation was one of the hottest topics in the gaming industry in the early 2010s
it all started with Jason West and Vince impella two ambitious game developers who had formed an
Activision subsidiary called Infinity Ward if you've ever heard of that little that little
Studio back in 2002 led the development of Call of Duty many of its sequels during the mid-2000s
Call of Duty absolutely exploded it reshaped the first person shooter genre and redefine console
multiplayer for a whole new generation the Modern Warfare sub Series in particular made Call of Duty
a household name it also turned Infinity Ward into one of the gaming Industries main Titans
no pun intended but if you know anything about Activision you know they can often find themselves
in Passionate disagreements with their studios in the late 2000s Infinity Ward was starting to learn
that first hand before we move on guys if you get anything from g2a.com consider using Code chaos to
get some cash back the link is at the top of the description now following the insane success of
Call of Duty 4 West and zampella wanted to find a way to split their Studio from Activision entirely
they wanted to cut off the Big Brother originally the two struck a deal with Activision uh being the
more are giving them more creative freedom on the Call of Duty franchise but Activision added in a
clause in that new contract that stated if West and zampella were ever fired Activision would
retain the rights to Call of Duty very smart on their part you can probably imagine how a
contract like that would lead to a pretty hostile environment as Infinity war was fighting for more
creative freedom but if they messed up even a little bit Activision would bring down the hammer
and rip Call of Duty the entire IP away from them for good so naturally Weston's impeller weren't
satisfied with this being their work environment they quietly started weighing their options
elsewhere but this was unfortunately what caused everything to collapse Jason and Vince were doing
their best to find a way to make Infinity Ward independent but when Activision found doubt that
the two had actually met with other Publishers to discuss possible contracts they saw that as
in subordination in the dynamic duo was fired in March of 2010. now the following month basically
everything at Infinity Ward collapsed a whopping 46 developers resigned in protest following the
firing of Weston's impella and within a few months it was confirmed via LinkedIn that 38
of the 46 had signed on to new positions at a brand new studio called respawn entertainment
less than a month after Weston zampello were fired from Infinity Ward they had created a new studio
called respawn and it seems once word got around to the rest of the Infinity Ward crew that their
bosses had been busted for simply trying to stick up for them it was the equivalent of them lighting
the bat signal to start fresh somewhere else respawn received most of its initial funding
through EA who was eager to grab some new talent for a Call of Duty competitor of course they were
by E3 2011 EA was fully in response Corner openly promoting their new Sci-Fi oriented
first-person shooter that they were hoping would compete with games like Gears of War and a Halo
now interestingly early promotion for Titanfall never really compared it to Call of Duty even
though it was really clear to all of us that EA was hoping for their own Cod equivalent but then
again Titanfall was a mashup of various FPS ideas despite the foundation being very inspired by Call
of Duty I get sea was just trying to be casual about having their own Call of Duty but the first
issue with Titanfall was the fact that it was back in mid-2011. EA made a statement they were
holding on to respawn's new game until they had an opportunistic window to release it release Windows
have never been Titan's fault's friend and that would eventually become the ultimate downfall of
Titanfall 2 which we'll get into later it's just a tad ironic that right from the beginning EA was
promising good release Windows to an IP that they would eventually completely Doom with absolutely
horrible release windows so Titanfall one had a great Foundation to its gameplay was developed by
a team of roughly 65 people the mashing of twitch based Call of Duty style Gunplay with a giant Mech
bass combat arimas it was unique in the inclusion of tons of AI Control grunts on the battlefield
made everything feel a lot more epic at that time and a lot more exciting but all was not well with
Titanfall 1 because EA got a little too excited about having their own Call of Duty competitor and
they ended up getting a little little too greedy with their business tie-ins for starters they
signed it with Microsoft to make the game an Xbox console exclusive which was a massive problem for
a number of reasons first of all the Xbox One got off to a disastrous start in 2013 following its
initial reveal most the gaming communities saw the Xbox one as a laughing stock due to the horrendous
E3 reveal that promised things like always Online requirements and the mandatory connect
camera that could not be unplugged sure Microsoft eventually walked all those things back but the
Xbox one had a rough start so Titanfall being an Xbox console exclusive didn't do it any favors
but the other major issue with Titanfall being an XBox exclusive was the fact that most of the Call
of Duty Community had hopped over to the PS4 at this time I still remember I don't remember if it
was Call of or Black Ops 3 or which one it was but PlayStation like delivering us new PS4s when we
were at the Call of Duty event they were like in our hotel it was absolutely insane and then right
before that or right after that we were at the Titanfall one reveal event it's just crazy crazy
times it really was following the launch of the PS4 and the Xbox One Sony struck up a deal with
Activision for a lot of exclusive Call of Duty perks including the professional circuit and that
was on top of the fact that the PS4 was already out selling the Xbox three to one and that was due
to Microsoft's horrible E3 presentation we talked about this meant the vast majority of the Call of
Duty Community did not own an Xbox One at the time that Titanfall one was coming out and since EA was
banking on the Cod Community rallying around this new game you can see how that put a massive dent
in the sales and the strategy now another major issue with the first game was the fact that it
was a full priced sixty dollar game despite only being multiplayer the first game didn't really
have a single player campaign nor did it have any offline bonus modes like a horde PVE mode
nothing like that you were paying 60 full price for the online multiplayer and there was a big
Hefty season pass slapped on top of that the early 2010s were the era of full price multiplayer only
games and Titanfall being attached to that Trend put yet another dent in its reputation before most
people even tried it so when Titanfall 1 launched it was praised for its gameplay the unique combat
but it was heavily criticized for the pricing model in the exclusivity had it launched on
every platform at thirty dollars instead of 60 it could have been one of the biggest games of the
decade honestly instead it was a giant swing and a missed opportunity but that doesn't mean it was
all bad Titanfall was still a financial success for respawn and EA and it certainly put a respawn
entertainment on the map a sequel was quickly green lit and the studio was determined to fix
all of their mistakes with the follow-up now we arrive at Titanfall 2. Titanfall 2's development
team was increased from 65 people to 90 and the production began in mid-2014. it gave the game
two years to go gold if you don't know what going gold means it means on disk ready to ship right
from the start respawn wanted to address the first game's two main criticisms those being the Xbox
exclusivity and the lack of single player content the single player campaign was intended to be kind
of like a buddy cop movie with the main dynamic between the human pilot and his Mech partner BT
while the game design was heavily inspired by Valve games like Half-Life and portal meaning
the main story would be framed around a mystery in the level design would encourage players to find
their own way to the end point as opposed to just pulling them along a singular linear path on Rails
the multiplayer also greatly expanded upon it was thanks to the feedback from the first game colors
were made brighter better visibility more movement mechanics were added increased the speed the skill
Gap the maps were made a bit more predictable to increase engagement and reduce frustrating random
deaths the Titans they were also redesigned to make it easier to tell the classes apart from one
another and add a bit more push and pull to the combat system respawn poured their heart into this
game they poured their hearted Soul into Titanfall 2 and apparently there was even a VR version
prototyped but it never made it to full production because of let's be real how vomit inducing it
actually was which does make sense to me so every single change made to Titanfall 2's gameplay made
it a better game from its predecessor they're on the right track right and there's a reason why
so many people consider it to be one of the best first person shooters of all time but you say how
can you consider it to be one of the best first person shooters all time and we're going to talk
about its failure how do those two go together I mean well we'll see the movement was amazing the
gameplay was addicting the story was awesome replayable by all means should have been one
of the biggest games of the decade again so what happened well some of Titanfall 2's issues fell
on the lap of EA While others fell on the lap of hackers that kept it from being enjoyed by anyone
other than themselves so as many of you probably know EA's release date decision for Titanfall 2
was almost hilariously bad remember what I said earlier about how EA was dedicated to finding an
opportunistic release window for Titanfall well Titanfall 2 was released in between Battlefield
1 Call of Duty infinite Warfare just a few weeks after Gears of War 4 which was perhaps the worst
decision anyone ever made in regard to a release window Battlefield 1 one of the most anticipated
games of the year while infinite Warfare doesn't didn't have a lot of hype surrounding it's still
a Call of Duty game so it's going to soak up sales Titanfall 2 had a lot to prove it needed
a relatively uncontested release window in order to prove those points instead it was eaten alive
by The Gauntlet of competition I mean it sold an estimated 4 million units in his first two
months which was drastically lower than the 10 million that EA was projecting it was not only a
fan favorite it was also one of the best reviewed games of the year tons of awards accolades despite
its disappointing sales in the low player counts the game was excellent but it was at
the wrong place at the wrong time sales and hype at Titanfall one was not nearly enough to make it
worthy of competing against two giants like Call of Duty and Battlefield especially since this was
the year that Battlefield was sending us back to World War one and Call of Duty was building
or bundling a remaster of cod 4 with a new game and Gears of War made its long-awaited comeback
with the fourth main installment it really didn't matter how good Titanfall was it wouldn't compete
it couldn't compete it just wrong place wrong time three competing juggernauts it was a horrendous
decision I'm honestly amazed that EA allowed it to happen because if Titanfall 2 had launched
an early 2017 instead it would have cleaned house plus it would have given respawn a few more months
to beef up the game security which leads us to the other main reason for the game's failure
Titanfall 2 may have flopped to launch but it could have come back to life with time there
have been plenty of games that launched on the wrong foot they all launch on the wrong foot now
but then managed to become huge successes just look at Sea of Thieves no man's Sky Fallout 76
and millions of other examples but unfortunately we can't have nice things in this world because
Titanfall 2 had a huge hacking problem that kept it from ever being able to maintain a healthy
player base following the failure of Titanfall 2's launch the support team was reduced to the point
that respawn even admitted at one point there was only one or two people maintaining the servers at
99 of the team had transitioned to Apex Legends and that's just not gonna work it's been hackers
were able to run around basically uncontested and perform some of the most obnoxious attacks on a
video game I've ever seen hackers were constantly knocking people offline overloading the service
with DDOS attacks and even got to a point that the massive Community effort called save Titanfall
was initiated to essentially do battle with the hackers that were making the game unplayable see
when a game has thousands and thousands of people playing it a handful of hackers aren't too hard
to avoid but in the case of Titanfall 2 where the community was rather small and there was only a
handful of game lobbies running at any given time that small number of hackers could quite literally
make the game unplayable for everyone after a massive Community investigation they included
a 40-page document of everything wrong it was discovered there were some key oversights in the
game security that essentially allowed hackers to break the entire multiplayer but again since
there was only one or two people maintaining the TitanFall 2 servers at that point it was
a lost cause I mean it was despite its Community quite literally spelling out what was wrong with
the game and telling respawn exactly what needed to be fixed there simply weren't enough people on
Titanfall 2's team to make a difference and since the game wasn't making any money for respawner EA
they weren't going to allocate any additional resources Titanfall 2 was literally left to
rot despite being one of the best games of the decade not only did this masterpiece of a game
get the worst launch window in gaming history it also lost any chance for long-term success
because of the key security oversights that neither EA or respawn have been willing to fix
so what happens now Apex Legends obviously isn't going anywhere but the community has been begging
for Titanfall 3 for years it seems like there's always new rumors floating around about respawn
potentially working on it personally have mixed opinions on one hand I find it hard to believe
that EA would ever Greenlight Titanfall 3 due to all the money they lost in the first two games
yes Apex Legends made all that money back and then some but when you look at the TitanFall franchise
from the perspective of EA it's almost impossible to justify them green lighting a third game
Titanfall one and two were both disappointments so why make a third especially when Apex Legends
is already doing everything the mainline games couldn't do but then on the other hand I think
there's a decent chance we get that third game for a number of reasons first of all EA's not
stupid we like to think they are but they're not the a is absolutely aware of the community outcry
for Titanfall 3 and respawn themselves have even acknowledged it on multiple occasions they know
there's a ton of people who would buy Titanfall 3 and assuming they don't make the same release
window mistake again the game would supposedly be the best selling of the trilogy just by existing
but the main reason I think Titanfall 3 may actually be coming is a simple fact that EA
is in a desperate need of Premium Shooters to compete with Call of Duty let's be real right
now Battlefield is dead Star Wars Battlefront debt right and Call of Duty is currently in
the most vulnerable position it's ever been in Modern Warfare 2's leading players at a rapid
pace and Warzone 2 is currently being stopped by Apex according to steam charts and now we get the
leaks that this year's Cod is Modern Warfare 3. Call of Duty's position at the top of the console
FPS Market could very easily be challenged by some other premium Shooters and with Apex doing all the
marketing for Titanfall 3 EA could have a massive hit at this point everyone knows just how much
Titanfall 2 got screwed over by its release window and the lack of continued support but if Titanfall
3 were to drop I think it would be a different story I think EA realizes that they need something
to compete with Call of Duty but with all their other shooter franchises is kind of in the toilet
this may be it this may be the perfect timing the moons May align the planets May Come Together for
the trilogy to finally be completed so by thoughts are this will we ever get Titanfall 3 I am
conservatively hopefully optimistic it makes sense to happen you just have to have the right people
at the top really have the clarity to see what the community wants and actually push through I
have faith in respawn I just don't have as much faith in EA let me know your thoughts everybody
let me know if you enjoyed Titanfall 2 and let me know if you enjoy these retrospect type of videos
if you do let me know some other topics you would like me to visit I'll see you guys soon