Titanfall's Redemption

SWORD HYPE

With the release of Titanfall 2's first teaser trailer, veterans of its predecessor couldn't be happier, and not just because because we've wanted swords since the original was first announced.  Believe it or not, T2 represents something more important than swords: A second chance.  Despite Titanfall releasing to critical acclaim, including a record-breaking 6 E3 Critics Awards, the player base had all but collapsed within a few months of release.  What could've caused such a mechanically sound, innovative game to crash and burn so hard?

The first nail in the coffin was lack of private games on launch.  Although you could form parties to play with, you would always be fighting randoms.  The private game function wasn't even brought into beta until a month after launch, at which point the damage had already been done: people wanting to play against their friends had lost interest, and the functionality needed to kickstart a competitive scene wasn't there.  This was the beginning of the positive feedback loop that plagues declining multiplayer games: people stop playing, so getting a well matched fight is harder, so more people stop playing, and so on until only the truly dedicated remain.

Another issue was the map packs.  The first was released 2 months after launch, and split the players in twain.  Some people were more than happy to shell out for more maps, since the original maps were so great.  However, a lot of people didn't want to sink more money into a dying game, and understandably so.  Why pay for content when you're happy with what you've already got, and don't think you'd even be able to use it for much longer.  This schism shrank the potential matchmaking pool for both sides, accelerating the player haemorrhage feedback loop.  On Titanfall's first birthday all 3 map packs were made free forever, but at this point, it was far too late to rectify the damage.

Matchmaking was a problem too.  Or rather, a whole slew of problems.  Who you were matched against seemed to be level-based, rather than skill-based, leading to matches turning into complete steamrolls that satisfy neither side.  And post match, there was no functional rebalancing, so you were better off finding a new lobby and trying your luck to find a more balanced match.  And sometimes, the matchmaking just wouldn't find you a match.  At one point, the origin patching broke and it was almost impossible to find a match unless you manually hit the search for update button.

There is one thing that can help bring life to dying games: custom servers.  Having community servers where things can be banned, and map rotations can be chosen leads to a better experience for everyone.  And having named servers were regulars play together helps bring together and reinforce the community.  Unfortunately, Titanfall was developed in such a way that this was impossible to implement, so people who wanted to play without polarising features such as the smart pistol had no choice but to suck it up or leave.

People  are throwing around a lot of ideas they think could save T2 from the fate of its predecessor, such as removing the smart pistol, or adding more visual customisation to pilots and titans.  But gameplay mechanics and features were never really the problem.  If Respawn Entertainment want their game to be long-lived, they need to fix the non-gameplay aspects and learn from their mistakes, or they will be doomed.