The first Titanfall was quite popular among my circles. The concept of Titans, giant mecha-exoskeletons that could operate with or without a pilot, was lauded for its coolness. I recall how bitter I was that I couldn’t play it, because I did not have any of the then-current platforms to play it on. This disappointment was softened somewhat once I heard that it wasn’t a particularly great game. The impact of statements about Call of Duty Black Ops stealing the jumpsuit ideas was softened by this too. When I heard about its sequel, Titanfall 2, I wasn’t particularly interested.

I regret that decision. In December 2019, Titanfall 2 was free for PlayStation Plus members, so I picked it up, not expecting much beyond some cheap action thrills. After I downloaded the game, I didn’t even bother playing it for several months. What a fool I was.

It is tragic that Titanfall 2 is not widely and popularly regarded as one of the greatest first-person shooters of recent times, perhaps even of all time. I never played the original Titanfall, but if there were any issues with the game, they were definitely resolved in the sequel.

The controls felt smooth and never obstructed the experience. Wall-run and midair headshots never felt so cool. Controlling a pilot was extremely easy, just like any other good first-person shooter. This translated well to controlling Titans as well. The developers at Respawn really nailed making the Titan aiming and movement controls feel familiar, but slightly unnatural. In this case, unnatural was good because I was constantly reminded that I was controlling a Titan, and not a pilot. Titanfall 2 is contains segments without Titans, and these segments felt more agile. This is exactly how it should have felt, and I was impressed that it was done so well.

This game made me become more interested in science fiction. I’ve never been particularly thrilled about giant mechs or laser rifles, but steering Titans changed that. There were a variety of Titan loadouts, several of which offered different approaches to combat. The Scorch Titan class functioned as a flame-slinging juggernaut, while the Ronin Titan class felt like I was piloting a giant, teleporting cyber-ninja.

Titanfall 2 contains a single-player campaign in addition to its multiplayer modes. Usually, first-person shooters have relatively disappointing campaigns rife with stale action tropes. Titanfall 2 contained some of these: an unsurprising NPC death near the beginning of the story, over-the-top and sometimes corny villains, and even characters sacrificing themselves for the mission. Despite all of this, I found the campaign entertaining. The writers certainly didn’t reinvent the wheel, but the story and gameplay were integrated so that they never interrupted one another.

The multiplayer takes everything exciting about the campaign and dials it up to 100. The first time I played, I was so overwhelmed with all the in-game radio chatter, explosions, not to mention the shock of having a Titan dropped on me. After a few games, I got the hang of it. This is another compliment to the game – it’s not too difficult to pick up. Teams consisted of a mix of other players like me, and characters operated by the game itself. The latter aren’t very clever at all and function as speed bumps for most players. I really appreciated this feature because I could use the computer-operated enemies to contribute towards my team winning. This translates to accessibility for players who might not be as skilled, while still rewarding players who invest more time in the game. It wasn’t long before I learned how to properly use my pilot gadgets to consistently best other players and summon my Titan multiples time every match, or build killstreaks. I have lots of games to catch up on, but I still come back to Titanfall 2 multiplayer every so often because it’s just so much fun.

All of this to say that I hold Titanfall 2 as one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had recently. Until I did some research, I was baffled as to why the game didn’t have the buzz its competitors do, especially when it came from companies like Respawn and EA. To summarize, EA just didn’t care about it, and it was probably a mistake on their part. If they had released Titanfall 2 on a different date, the game would have done a lot better. I think there’s an important lesson here about industry propaganda inhibiting the success some games deserve while spotlighting games that simply don’t deserve to be praised. Titanfall 2 is a Triple-A game that the developers obviously worked very hard on, but it didn’t get nearly as much attention as some of its peers from the same publisher. Nowadays, we have games like No Man’s Sky, Fallout 76, and Cyberpunk 2077 that et so much hype up to their release, only to be an initial disappointment because they can’t live up to it. The story of Titanfall 2’s is one that presents a valuable lesson – we don’t always have to believe what we hear. We can try things for ourselves. And who knows – we might be surprised to find we made a great choice.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out my other entries in the “Late to the party” series!