Unless you have been living on a distant planet, you have probably heard about the latest next-gen FPS title from Respawn Entertainment Titanfall. As we are closing in to the official release of the game on March 11, lucky players were able to get into the closed beta version, which will reportedly become open to everyone in a few hours time. However, a question we dare ask ourselves is what is all the hype about?
Similar to last year’s Battlefield 4 situation, Titanfall have been receiving tons of positive reviews and game related advertising is all over the place. Even though, judging by the beta the game does not seem to have that many gameplay and build related issues, the whole feel of the game is rather similar to an already existing AAA FPS franchise formerly developed by Respawn Entertainment founders Jason West and Vince Zampella, called Call of Duty.
Titanfall is nothing but a Call of Duty DLC
Don’t get me wrong, Titanfall is a pretty solid game, but the similarities between Call of Duty and the child of Respawn Entertainment are too many to go unnoticed. So many, that in fact we’d rather discuss what is the difference between the two titles.
Stand by for TitanFall
The main difference and the one that Titanfall revolves around are the Titans. Big, heavy mechanical mecha bots that act nothing like such. The graphical fidelity and the overall visual quality of the game is worthy of an AAA game, but anyone who has played the game has probably noticed that the aesthetics of the game simply throw you out of the whole experience. Noticed first in the alpha version of the game, the problem still persists and may go unaddressed by its developers. When in control of a Titan, rather than felling in a big mechanical creature, the player feels as if in an oversized human body. This directly contradicts with the main idea of the game as the robots are not designed to be bio-mechanical, but aim to resemble a more heavy old-style build.
Jump Around! Use the environment to your advantage!
The second difference in the game is that the players are able to freerun and use the environment to their advantage jumping from one place to another. While this is a rather neat feature it does not add that many additional gameplay scenarios and such parkour stunts can be integrated in the already existing AAA FPS titles, such as Call of Duty and Battlefield 4.
Titanfall is not even worthy to be mocked as ‘Call of Duty 5’
In addition to the Titans and the freerun adventures, the gameplay of Titanfall differs from the Call of Duty one with a six versus six multiplayer cap and AI. However, the AI in the game is not that complex as some players even go as far as saying that the AI robots do nothing else, but blending in with the background being super easy to avoid and kill.
Why is Titanfall called a true next-gen experience?
As gaming develops so do the marketing strategies companies use to advertise their product. We are already familiar with the advances EA makes in order to attract more customers, but that is not the sole reason for the success of Titanfall. The second piece of the puzzle is the exclusivity of the game to the next-gen Xbox One and Microsoft are doing everything in their power to make the game a selling point for their expensive console.
Overall, if it wasn’t for the perfect situation Respawn Entertainment put themselves into having both EA and Microsoft to advertise their product, Titanfall is nothing more than a clone of Call of Duty with tiny gameplay tweaks. Having played the game, anyone could agree that a single modder would be able to deliver everything Titanfall has to offer via a small Call of Duty DLC package.
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