Titanfall series lead writer Jesse Stern confirmed that Titanfall 2 will feature a single-player campaign, addressing widespread criticism leveled at the series’ 2014 debut.
Stern stated that developer Respawn Entertainment is “only a little past a year into [development],” and expects to see a release “sometime late this year or early next.”
The original Titanfall launched in 2014 as an Xbox console exclusive, offering a variety of competitive multiplayer options. Titanfall expands on its Call of Duty-inspired first-person shooting mechanics with the addition of Titans: bipedal tanks that players can commandeer over the course of each match.
Unlike many modern first-person shooters, however, Titanfall did not feature a single-player story component. Aside from a handful of tutorial and training missions, the bulk of Titanfall‘s content required players to compete with others over an online connection.
In an interview with Forbes, Stern claimed that Titanfall 2 will feature a greater emphasis on narrative and lore than its predecessor.
“We are doing our best to deliver a vision of grand global colonial warfare retelling the story of the American Revolution and the American Civil War in space,” Stern said. “We imagined the next generation of immigrants moving out to the new frontier of an inhabitable planet.”
Stern continued: “Rather than taking a traditional sci-fi approach to that we wanted to look at how that would happen practically, what the ships would look like and with machines that were designed for excavation and construction, demolition and working the land, and what happens when they are turned into instruments of war.”
Stern also notes that Titanfall 2 will be a multiplatform release, ending the series’ Xbox exclusivity period. Respawn Entertainment founder Vince Zampella previously confirmed that a PlayStation 4 version of Titanfall 2 will launch alongside ports for the Xbox One and PCs.
