Titanfall 2 Developer Takes Shots At Call of Duty

Remember the ridiculous ‘Press F To Pay Respects’ scene from 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare? That scene became the butt of a whole lot of jokes and memes, and rightly so, given just how absurd it was. Now, it looks like someone else is joining in on the fun to poke fun at Call of Duty, and challenge them to a battle head on- Respawn Entertainment, with their upcoming Titanfall 2. Respawn posted a tweet poking fun at Call of Duty, while promoting their own game.

Thankfully, the tweet that the Titanfall 2 account posted wasn’t all too serious- it was mostly in good fun. “Respawn has innovated the stale FPS genre once again. RT to Pay Respects,” it says, tongue firmly in cheek.

Titanfall 2 is the sequel to the 2014 Xbox and PC exclusive hit shooter game, and there is a special rivalry between it and Call of Duty that must be considered. Respawn, the studio that develops Titanfall, is composed primarily of ex-Infinity Ward alums, who left Activision in a blaze of bad blood following the release of Modern Warfare 2 in 2009. So the talent at Respawn managed to redefine shooters entirely once, with the original Modern Warfare (and arguably again,  considering that Titanfall‘s setting and movement systems are widely aped). With them going up against their former studio this year, as well as a remaster of their own magnum opus, you can imagine that there are some dramatic stakes here.

That said, whether the tweet was meant as a joke or not, I think that it was terribly misguided, as I believe that Titanfall 2 will be buried under the avalanche of Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and Gears of War 4 this Holiday season. The mostly negative player reception to the multiplayer tests for Titanfall 2 also don’t fill me with confidence about its prospects.

We’ll see how the game ends up doing when it releases later this month, on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.