Hints and updates from Respawn spark fan theories for Titanfall 3

Is Respawn Entertainment hinting that Titanfall 3 is in development? The development studio behind Titanfall, Titanfall 2, and Apex Legends, has been dropping some major hints recently that's been making diehard fans hopeful. We’ve complied all of the hints, conspiracy theories, and copium below to try and piece together this puzzle.

Out of nowhere earlier this month, Respawn updated Titanfall 2. These updates provided fixes to matchmaking issues, patched long standing glitches, and threw in some new Nessies for good measure. In fact, it may have been the Nessies themselves who provided the fixes, as fans spotted them near hammers around the map where fixes were made.

In addition to bug fixes, Titanfall 2 private matches were finally taken out of beta. Also, a mysterious new game mode titled “???” was added.

In response to these changes, the player base for Titanfall 2 exploded. On Steam, the game peaked at around 23,000+ players, a massive increase from the dwindling player base of around 1,000 in the past couple months.

The hint that sparked the most buzz among fans was at the end of the season 18 mid-season patch notes.

The numbers included in the text were quickly decoded on social media. They are Unix timestamps, each one standing for the release date of Titanfall, Titanfall 2, and Apex Legends respectively. Obviously, these dates would imply that something new, a whole game even, may release. This is especially exciting since it has been pointed out that the current season of Apex Legends will end within a week of Titanfall 2’s anniversary. Though that could be a coincidence, we’ll keep on our tinfoil hats, thank you very much.

Respawn has been known to give fans whiplash about the prospects of Titanfall 3. According to a former Respawn dev, Titanfall 3 was in fact in the works for the better part of a year before it was shelved. Mohammed Alavi, a narrative lead designer, told The Burnettwork on YouTube a couple months ago about what happened.

“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like "Okay, we’re going to make Titanfall 3," and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about ten months, right?”

During the production of Titanfall 3, a major shift in the video game industry occurred with the release of PUBG. The sudden rise of the Battle Royale. Alongside the developers feeling that they were just making a slightly improved Titanfall 2, this new game mode inspired the devs to switch gears to creating their own battle royale.

“We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves because we were like, “We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.”

With that dev testimony, it’s clear that Apex Legends stomped out the development of Titanfall 3 and the battle royale has been going steady ever since. But that wasn’t the end of the Titanfall story at Respawn.

In early Spring, EA announced a sudden wave of game cancellations. Among them was the un-announced TFL, or Titanfall Legends. This game was secretly in development and would’ve been a single player game set in the Titanfall and Apex Legends universe. From what we know, it would’ve combined the lovable characters of Apex with the gameplay of Titanfall. Sadly, the game was made known to the public and killed at the same time, disappointing fans who didn’t even know they should’ve been excited.

Later, in April of this year, the Respawn CEO Vince Zampella stated that he would love to make another Titanfall game. However, he did clarify that it would have to be the right time and place. This means, if Titanfall 3 were to happen, it’s unlikely to be soon. The community coordinator for Titanfall also said in recent years that a sequel was unlikely. At the same time Respawn was secretly developing TFL, so who knows.

Hopefully! That’s all we can say, since Respawn hasn’t confirmed anything and all of their hints have been cryptic thus far. It’s hard to see the numbers at the end of the patch notes as anything but a hint towards a future game announcement. However, that could mean the revival of Titanfall Legends instead of Titanfall 3.

There’s enough fan excitement to fuel a new Titanfall game, if the last couple days of fan reactions and conspiracy theories are anything to go off of.  We’ll be sure to update you on any further news about the future of Titanfall!

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