Apex Legends may not be about to bring down Fortnite anytime soon, but the game has certainly enjoyed a remarkable amount of success since its launch. With Respawn currently developing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, however, some fans have been growing concerned that Apex will fall by the wayside. In a recent statement, the game’s Executive Producer categorically states that that will not happen. However, the focus on developing content for and improving Apex Legends does apparently mean future Titanfall projects being pushed back.
The Focus on Apex Legends Means Respawn Pushing Titanfall Projects
In an open letter to the Apex Legends community, Executive Producer Drew McCoy covered a whole variety of topics. He laid out a list of four key issues which Respawn plans to prioritise addressing, for example. He also said that Apex Legends Season 2 details would come at EA Play in June. However, in laying out Respawn’s plans for the future, McCoy made mention of the studio’s upcoming projects, including Titanfall.
“It is important to understand that there are entirely separate development teams working on Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order,” he explains; “Additionally, in order to fully support Apex Legends, we are pushing out plans for future Titanfall games. No resources from the Apex Legends team are being shifted to other titles in development here at the studio.”
The news may disappoint fans of the Titanfall games; Respawn’s often under-valued first-person shooter series. The commercial failure of Titanfall 2, despite critical acclaim from reviewers, is particularly infamous, both in the industry and among fans; EA made the mistake of releasing the game in-between two of the biggest first-person shooter releases of the year; Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. As a result, Titanfall 2 under-performed significantly. Indeed, more recently, the companydelayed the release of Battlefield 5 after analysts raised concerns about history repeating itself. Since then, fans have been hoping that Respawn would get another chance with Titanfall.
What Does the Announcement Actually Mean for Titanfall?
Although Apex Legends is set within the universe of Titanfall, the game is clearly a very different beast. No doubt there are still plenty of Respawn fans whose desire for another Titanfall game has’nt been sated. As such, the news that Respawn plans to push future Titanfall projects to work on Apex may be disappointing to many. However, it’s certainly not a surprising decision. After all, Apex Legends has been wildly and unexpectedly successful since its February release. Respawn has found itself with a huge community to deliver new content for and a lot of big new challenges, such as cheating, to try and tackle.
It’s also important to note that McCoy states that Respawn is pushing; “plans for future Titanfall games,” rather than “development on future Titanfall games”. Indeed, with Fallen Order already in development alongside Apex Legends, it seems very unlikely that Respawn currently has anything more than plans for any future Titanfall projects. It certainly doesn’t sound like any actual Titanfall games are in development at the moment. As such, it’s not likely that fans would have gotten Titanfall 3 anytime soon even without the launch of Apex. In fact, although Respawn is pushing their Titanfall plans back, the success of Apex Legends may ultimately prove to be a very good thing for Titanfall…
Has Apex Legends Made Titanfall 3 More Likely?
The biggest obstacle to Respawn making another Titanfall game is the commercial failure of Titanfall 2. Even though the largest factor in that failure was demonstrably EA’s decision to release it alongside Call of Duty and Battlefield, EA has had little incentive to give it another shot since. After all, the corporation is beholden to its investors, and investors don’t want them to take big risks. Without a commercial success to point to as evidence, the case for developing another Titanfall is shaky at best; especially when EA has other successful properties which can take priority.
With the unexpected success of Apex Legends, Respawn may now have the success that they needed to sell the idea of Titanfall 3 to EA. Even if Respawn has existing plans for Titanfall, there’s no guarantee that EA has even green-lit those plans for developments yet. Indeed, at this stage, it’s unknown whether another Titanfall game would ever have gotten approval from EA. Whatever the case, the success of Apex does provide evidence that Respawn can make a commercially successful first-person shooter.
Battle Royales vs. Single-Player Narratives
Well, doesn’t that mean EA will pressure Respawn to develop more battle royale games? Not necessarily. It’s fair to say that Apex Legends is far from Titanfall 2. Although that game had a well-designed multiplayer component, it was its single-player story campaign which received the most acclaim. However, now is definitely a good time to pitch single-player story campaigns.
The enormous success last year of God of War has shown the gaming industry that there is a huge market for single-player games, and now we’re starting to see more games of that sort appear. Meanwhile, battle royales like Fortnite are slowly declining. Indeed, Fallen Order looks set to advance this exact trend; an industry-wide shift towards single-player in an effort to emulate God of War’s success. Once it releases, that game may well once again demonstrate that Respawn can also deliver great single-player games. Between a successful Fallen Order launch and the success of Apex Legends, the stars may very well align for the development of the Titanfall 3 which fans have always wanted…