Titanfall 2 Director Explains Why Respawn Lowered Game Speed For The Sequel

One of the big changes that Respawn made to Titanfall with Titanfall 2 was the game speed- gone is the frenetic, hectic, fast pace of the first game. In its place, we have something relatively more sedate (though it still remains a fast moving game, all said and done).

In an interview with ShackNews, Titanfall 2 director Steve Fukuda explained the thought process and rationale behind slowing the game down like this.

“After the original game, we sat down and looked at it objectively,” he said. “We got a lot of feedback from the outside, from fans, from research saying, “Hey, there’s not enough. There’s not enough content. We want more content.” Internally, we played the game and came out of the play session thinking, “That was super exhausting. That was super chaotic.” Why is that? We struggled with trying to answer what it was.

“What it came down to was, it was difficult for players to have a predictably unpredictable kind of experience. It was difficult for players to say, “If I die here in this game mode, how do I get better?” Do I zig? Do I zag? What should I have done differently? It was hard for Titanfall players to answer that through their experience. So we went back to the drawing board so we could fix this.

“We started by addressing the fact that you move so fast. You can’t shoot out of the air so easily. So we slowed things down just a touch. Then also thinking more in terms of having players more proactive decisions, so instead of reacting to everything, they’re thinking more like, “This match and this mode, this map, etc.” They go, what things in the loadout menu will best help me fulfill that purpose. There’s a much greater sense of purpose for players, so now they are thinking in terms of planning ahead, in terms of “I want to do this. This is my goal, this is my identity of how I am as a player.” There’s a huge difference, because all the different modes now kind of necessitate the player proactively thinking about what they want to do.”

I can sort of understand the reasoning, but at the same time, losing such an integral part of the identity of the original game seems to be a bit unfaithful to the millions who were fans of it- then again, since Respawn are basically treating this new game as a new IP, I suppose they don’t hold the original game’s legacy too sacred to begin with.