Last week, Respawn announced that it’s working on a single-😼player game set in the Apex Legends universe. Well, it didn’t so much announce it as eagle-eyed fans noticed some job adverts go live for a single-player title. You can see for yourself that for a Hard Surface Artist on the Apex Universe FPS Incubation game (that’♔s probably a working title) says that the perfect candidate will be working on “a brand new Respawn single-player adventure.”
Titanfall fans are pissed off. At first glance, you can see why; 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Titanfall and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Apex Legends are🔥 set in the same universe, and Titanfall came first. Apex is set in the Titanfall universe, not the other way around. But is that still the case?
Apex Legends has outgrown Titanfall. It began as a spin-off, a battle royale in an established universe that fleshed out the lore for those invested in the game’s story. Not all battle royales have the luxury of a whole single-player cam🔯paign to establish their world, and Apex used the Titanfall lore well. However, as the crossovers between the games grew more frequent, Apex feels like it needs them less.
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As well as being the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Queen of ALGS esports, Valkyrie is the daughter of Viper, one of the enemy pilots in Titanfall 2. However, after the initial reveal and the fact that this connection got her into the games, the crossover has run its course. Viper’s dead (spoilers, I guess), so the only remaining connection Valkyrie has to Titanfall is through Apex Commissioner Kuben Blisk, who was the leader of the Apex Predators and her dad’s boss in Titanfall 2. However, in the game’s story, he’s being pushed out of his position by Octane’s dad, Eduardo Silva. Whether Blisk will enter the games as a playable Apex Legends character or not, it’s a fitting metaphor fo🦂r the old Titanfall characters being sidelined as new ones take the spotlight. But that shouldn’t be something for Titanfall fans to be mad about.
Titanfall 2 is the best first person shooter ever made. I think it’s a fantastic game, with satisfying mechanics, perfectly designed levels, and multiplayer that is almost unparalleled. I would welcome a third instalment like it was my own child returned home fro🃏m the Frontier War. But let’s face it, its characters aren’t great. While many of the Apex Predators – the game’s antagonist Titan pilots – have reached a cult status in the years since Titanfall 2’s release, they realistically have very small roles in the grand scheme of things. Fans have projected whole personalities and backstories onto the characters through a handful of voicelines, and while I love the creativity, most of the appeal comes from fans and their interpretations of the canon.
Apex Legends does not have this problem. The 21-strong roster each have their own personalities and thoroughly explored backstories, the relationships between them evolve every season, and the game is constantly adapting to incorporate more of the same. You understand more about Bangalore’s experience in the IMC if you’ve playeܫd Titanfall, but enough context is given that you don’t even need to have done so. Not all of the Apex lore is explained in-game &nda🍸sh; there are short films and books and Twitter comics – but that’s where a new single-player game comes in.
You’d be mistaken in thinking that Apex is about winning matches. It’s about characters, first and foremost. Whether you’re interested in those characters for their abilities and place in the meta or for the stories behind them, t🌠hey are the most important part o🍃f the game. Replace Jack Cooper with any other bland Pilot, however, and Titanfall 2 is the same. It excels in its mechanics, in wall-running and Titan battling, but the story has nothing on Apex.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Respawn’s treatment of Titanfall. In March this year, the developer 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:delisted the game completely, after years of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:racist hackers running rampant and making it unplayable. This came to a head when (different) hackers 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:hacked into Apex, sending messages to players encouraging them to “Save Titanfall,” as they believed Respawn was unwilling to do so. Whether or not you think that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:hacking Apex to make your poin🎐t is a bad th🐭ing, Titanfall 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:deserves better �𓄧�from Respawn than being left by the wayside as it focuses on a newer, shinier toy.
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Setting Respawn’s new single player FPS in the Apex Legends universe rather than the Titanfall universe may feel like the next step of Titanfall abandonment, but it is functionally meaningless and just makes more sense. They’re the same universe. Apex Legends is currently a bigger household name, and has millions of players spending millions of dollars every month, and is generally more relevant to the gaming zeitgeist in 2022. But it’s also a statement of intent. Whether Respawn is planning on using Apex characters or not, this phrasing shows that it is building on the three years of story its live-service game has told, and will continue telling, rather than on Titanfall’s short and less impactful narrative. Maybe there’ll be Titans, maybe the Apex Games will serve a narrative function, maybe it wo🃏n’t involve anything from either of the games.
Titanfall may have create🃏d a universe, but Apex filled it with stories to care about, and that’s why Respawn’s new game is siding with the newcomer. It may ꦬnot be Titanfall 3, but it may well be better.