Respawn Entertainment reveals that Titanfall 2’s single player experience will emphasize freedom, and center around themes of humanity’s relationship to artificial intelligence.

Titanfall 2 created some buzz at E3 with the reveal of  the sword-based titan class, and a trailer for the single player campaign. One of the main complaints with the first Titanfall was that the game lacked a single player story and, consequently, lacked enough content to justify the $60 price tag. Respawn Entertainment has promised to remedy that complaint in Titanfall 2 by having a substantial single player campaign mode in the game.

Vince Zampella and Drew McCoy from Respawn Entertainment recently shed further light on the gameplay mechanics of Titanfall 2’s single player campaign. According to McCoy, Titanfall 2’s single player will be different from the multiplayer experience, but still have “the mobility, the freedom to move around the environment however you want as well as the ability to get in and out of your titan whenever you want…”

The developers went on to talk about how the player’s titan will not be relegated to specific titan-only levels, but rather that the players would be able to get in and out of their titan as they please throughout a level. McCoy emphasized that the studio is working to make the single player campaign, “a more free-form experience.”

As intriguing as the single player mechanics sound, McCoy and Zampella also revealed that the game’s story will center heavily around human’s relationship to artificial intelligence. In the Titanfall universe, titans are more than just vehicles, they’re complex machines that have a relationship with their pilot.  Titanfall 2’s story will center on a titan who chooses a new pilot after the original pilot dies, and the relationship between the titan and the new pilot.

As far as details on some of the things showcased in the single player trailer, Zampella and McCoy weren’t eager to give away too much, but Zampella did say that, “There’s some cool twists in the mechanics and story that we want to keep under wraps and let people discover”.

It’s interesting to see that Titanfall 2’s single player story will deal with such heady themes, especially since the main character of the story appears to be the titan rather than the pilot. If anything, a deep and emotional story about a titan choosing a new pilot may help appeal to an audience outside of the multiplayer demographic, which is good news for Respawn, since Titanfall 2 will be competing with Battlefield 1 during their respective releases next year. A robust single player experience combined with the recent announcement that all of Titanfall 2’s DLC will be free, should go along way to win the goodwill of fans.

Will Titanfall 2 be able to compete with Battlefield 1?

Titanfall 2 is scheduled for release on October 28, 2016 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Source: GamesRadar