End of an era: Respawn Entertainment stops Titanfall sales

Respawn Entertainment announced they are pulling Titanfall from all online stores and subscription services. Titanfall is one of their best-selling games and this announcement came as a shock to the community. They will keep dedicated servers online for the existing playerbase.

On March 11, 2014, the First Person Shooter formula was rewritten and Respawn Entertainment broke into the limelight with the launch of their very first video game, Titanfall. The game will go down in the history books as a genre-defining FPS video game and rapidly garnered a cult following thanks to its unique, fast-paced movement-based combat. The community absolutely adored the game and it quickly became one of the most popular multiplayer shooters of the year.

On December 1, Respawn Entertainment's Twitter handle put out a statement titled "A note about Titanfall". In this note, they addressed a now disgruntled Titanfall community, informing them that they will be pulling the game from all online stores and subscription services on March 1, 2022. They also offered reassurance to the game's player base by saying "Titanfall is core to Respawn's DNA and this incredible universe will continue. Today in Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, and in the future. This franchise is a north star (pun obviously intended) for the caliber of experiences we will continue to create here at Respawn".

The Titanfall community appears to be quite skeptical of the statement. The game sparked debate among the player base and players sympathetic towards Respawn argue that Titanfall is 7 years old and Respawn has to prioritize Apex Legends, their largely successful live service game that is raking in the money to keep the studio afloat. A lot of disgruntled players argue that the issue they have is that Respawn launched the game on Steam, fully aware of its server problems. Why sell the game when it's already lived past its lifespan and is currently in an unplayable state?

Here's one of the comments from a redditor on their take about Respawn's move.

Indeed, the Titanfall player base has had a rough year, plagued by DDOS attacks and unplayable servers. The players have grown increasingly impatient and frustrated by Respawn's lack of action when it comes to preserving their beloved shooter. Both Titanfall and Titanfall 2 have had their fair share of issues with DDOS hacks and the servers being a mess. Even Apex Legends was attacked by the hackers at one point.

On August 31, 2020, EA Play was launched on Steam and along with it, all of steam's userbase gained access to EA's library of games included on EA Play. The games were also individually put on sale on the Steam Store and this included the original Titanfall. The player base was eager to experience Titanfall again, considering an influx of new players thanks to the game's availability on Steam. However, it seems EA had put the game up for sale on the store without fixing any of the issues with the servers and addressing the DDOS attacks. This drew a lot of criticism from the community.

While respawn has mentioned that the servers will continue to remain live for players that have purchased the game, the issue here is the state of these servers. The constant DDOS attacks and server crashes have driven away players who have had to resort to Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends for their favorite movement shooter experience and it's quite unlikely that the matchmaking will work now even if someone tries the game because there aren't many players on the server. It's quite likely that this is what drove Respawn to pull the plug on the game.

Unfortunately, respawn's statement is pretty unclear on whether or not there will be more Titanfall games. We've seen this in the past where they've put out tweets promising players that they still care about the Titanfall franchise only for it to arrive in the form of a Titanfall throwback in an Apex Legends content update. This statement could very well mean more Titanfall based content coming to Apex Legends. Respawn might just surprise us all and launch a new Titanfall game in the future. Their statement implies either of the two directions.

The player base is mainly skeptical of this because they consider Apex Legends to be a largely inferior gameplay experience to the original Titanfall and Titanfall 2. While Apex Legends does employ some core gameplay mechanics from Titanfall and Titanfall 2, it is quite different in its own way. Mainly because it attracts players from other popular first-person shooters and BRs like Call of Duty, PUBG, and Fortnite.

The game featured multiple game modes, slick and enjoyable combat that was centered around movement and fluidity. The party piece of the game was when players could summon their "Titan" to the battlefield. Titans were large mechs with unique weaponry that players could customize based on a range of playstyles and abilities. In addition to the enjoyable multiplayer gameplay, the game was also rich in lore and established its own universe and storyline, one that can be considered central and imperative to most of Respawn Entertainment's success. The Titanfall Universe carried on and grew with the introduction of Titanfall 2 (2016), and Apex Legends (2019) and is continuing to grow in the form of lore-based content additions to Apex Legends.

Titanfall can be considered Respawn Entertainment's grand entrance to the video game industry and it enjoyed a great deal of success and popularity. In fact, a lot of Respawn Entertainment's goodwill in the gaming community comes from the fact that their very first game launch was such a resounding success and considered one of the best first-person shooters in gaming history.

Will Apex Legends turn into the Titanfall game we're all waiting for? Will Respawn Entertainment launch a whole new Titanfall game? Find out on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z. We'll just have to wait and see over here at esports.gg.