Preview: Titanfall 2’s single-player campaign

In Los Angeles for a look into Respawn’s Titanfall 2, Stevivor had the chance to dive deep into its single-player campaign with Executive Producer Drew McCoy and Game Director Steve Fukuda.

While a critical success, the original Titanfall’s campaign – or, rather, a lack of one – was seen as its most glaring misstep. Fukuda was quick to acknowledge this when speaking of Respawn’s takeaways.

“People did not get the experience they wanted,” he began. “Although, surprisingly enough, the campaign multiplayer playlist was the second most played. Lots of people just keep playing it, going through that story over and over, looping it.”

Despite the campaign’s astonishing popularity, Fukuda acknowledged it’s not for everyone.

“We realise there are some people that never will want to play multiplayer. There’s a silent – maybe not a majority, but a large group of people — that want single-player and that’s it,” Fukuda said.

He takes a pause.

“They’re really quite loud,” he added with a smile.

Meet BT

Titanfall 2 seems poised to put a smile on the faces of the players Fukuda was describing as well. McCoy spent a good twenty minutes taking press through a hands-off demonstration of its single-player, sharing what we believe amounts to a good two hours of gameplay in what’s said to be an eight-hour campaign.

McCoy detailed the protagonists of the single-player campaign – Militia Rifleman-turned-Pilot, Jack Cooper, and his Titan, BT-7274. The Titan, affectionately known as BT, is unlike any other you’ve ever encountered before in Titanfall.

“One of the interesting themes of the Titanfall universe is the Militia and the IMC,” Fukuda said of BT’s origins. “The IMC are very disposable-minded — they’re not very aligned with each other. The IMC churns through people, through stuff – it doesn’t matter what’s destroyed in the process, so long as they’re making money.

“The Militia, on the other hand, is always thinking ahead, making durable things that are meant to last generations. There’s a sense of harmony about them.”

Those key differences mean each side sees Titans in very different light.

“The Militia, historically, take their Titans from the spoils of war or from battlefields or salvage, or stealing them from IMC shipments,” Fukuda continued. ”Basically, they’ve never had a Titan of their own.

“In the time that’s passed between Titanfall 1 and Titanfall 2, the Militia have gone off and designed their own Titan for the first time: the Vanguard-class Titan. That embodies the qualities and the ethos of the Milita – they want their Pilot and their Titan to look out for each other. When they do form that bond, they’ll be better and faster together. That’s reflected in their protocols – and our theme of the narrative — sacrifice for others.”

Those differences — that bond — mean BT is almost more human than machine. He has a personality — and strangely, a sense of humour, even though that may be lost on him. It’s those quirks that make BT feel more like a partner than a simple tool to Jack. A friend, even.

“Don’t go it alone – that’s what one character says in the game,” Fukuda explained. “And it’s a great summary.”

The all-important protocols

Fukuda referred to the three main Titan protocols, each central to the plot of the single-player campaign. McCoy explained each in succinct fashion, as also summarised in the single-player trailer recently shown at E3. The first protocol is the link to pilot. The second is for the Titan to uphold the mission.

“That’s really important,” Fukuda added. “The Pilot can’t say, ‘screw the war, let’s go to Cancun for a holiday’ – the Titan has to uphold the mission, its orders.”

The third protocol is for the Titan to protect its Pilot, McCoy concluded.

“It’s interesting, the order of those protocols,” he said. “The mission is more important than the pilot.”

In a way, the order of the protocols means the Militia treats Pilots as expendable, in very much the same way the IMC treats all of its assets.

“To a degree,” Fukuda said with a nod of his head. “The mission and how that mission serves the greater population – the needs of the many – come ahead of that one Pilot.”

Star Trek‘s Ambassador Spock would be proud.

Making the universe make sense

I’m one of those people who went through multiple playthroughs of Titanfall’s multiplayer campaign –primarily to score a win on every chapter for an Achievement – but I’d be hard-pressed to explain anything about the Militia, the IMC or any other aspect of the universe. Apart from Titans and Pilots, that is.

Fukuda said he understood where I was coming from.

“Part of that was because it was hard to communicate a sense of universe and context [in the original campaign],” he said. “For Titanfall 2, we had to think of a way to do context.”

“The core of multiplayer is two games in one: a big, strong Titan and a smaller Pilot who’s very agile and able to go into indoors and so forth. That’s the core idea, the core essence of Titanfall,” he continued. “We took that and set off to express that narratively [in single-player] in a way so that those who knew nothing of Titanfall had, at least, an anchor point.”

The relationship between Jack Cooper and BT serves as that anchor point.

“You know the old buddy cop story, right? That’s it,” Fukuda said. “That dynamic formed the basis that anyone could relate too – and that’s where we set off.”

Rather than an action-packed, balls-to-the-wall campaign, McCoy promised that Titanfall 2’s single-player will feature “a lot of downtime”, including puzzle-like navigation through environments and large sequences with dialogue between Pilot and Titan.

McCoy demonstrated, showing off various sequences where Cooper had a dialogue tree, of sorts, to respond to BT’s lines. It’s unclear – and neither developer would comment – if either option on that tree would impact anything down the line. Regardless, we enter the campaign as Cooper and BT are basically introduced to one another through their newfound link. We therefore get to see their relationship grow– and hopefully, prosper — as we work to take down the IMC.

A taste of multiplayer to come

It’s not all a buddy cop story. In addition to humourous chats and wall-running to avoid lazer beams, McCoy also demonstrated combat at the Pilot and at Titan level in single-player.

As a Pilot, Cooper can use the skills you’re accustomed to in the original Titanfall – we saw him fight with a personal cloak, myriad weapons and the game’s new grappling hook. The handful of sequences we watch played out almost like in Crysis, with Cooper electing to fight stealthily in one, like a generic first-person protagonist in another, and finally bouncing off the walls like a true Pilot should.

McCoy explained that many set pieces originated from what Respawn calls “action blocks” – designs developers made one week at a time, bound by one core element: that it be fun.

On the Titan side, BT-7274 won’t be bound by just one loadout. Loadouts seem to be scattered throughout the campaign, almost like collectibles. Once found, Fukuda confirmed that they can be swapped out with a simple push of a menu button.

“We want players to get maximum exposure to these things during the game and try those out,” he said. “Even in single-player, freedom to choose a loadout as BT is a big part of it all. We don’t want things to get stale.”

I saw a list of around ten available options as McCoy swapped from one loadout – Ion – to another, Scorch, just as the final element of single-player was teased: Boss battles. Cooper and BT were at low health and barely surviving a colossal attack by IMC forces just as an Arnold Schwartzenegger clone dropped onto the battlefield in a Titan of his own.

An epic battle was sure to follow, and that honestly surprised me – I didn’t expect to be so excited by the prospect of Titanfall 2’s single-player. I’m very happy to be wrong.

Titanfall 2 heads to Windows PC, Xbox One and PS4 on 28 October. Expect more from Stevivor on its multiplayer on Wedneday, 17 August.

Stevivor travelled to Los Angeles, CA to preview Titanfall 2 as a guest of Electronic Arts.