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Watch the evolution of Titanfall's DLC map 'Swampland'
Respawn Entertainment's first DLC pack for Titanfall is due this month, and offered insight on the creation of the game's new multiplayer levels. Designer Chris Dionne elaborated on the development of one of the Expedition levels called "Swampland" in a recent blog, which features a large cluster of redwood trees in a murky area. The developer also included a video showing the stage's (over)growth since its inception, seen above. The concept for the level first came about in the summer of 2011 while Titanfall was still in development, and was tabled for nearly two years before being considered again as a multiplayer DLC stage. Dionne said Swampland started out "almost completely flat with yellow fog and towering redwoods," which became crucial to its overall design. At one point, Swampland was overrun with IMC buildings, temples and a massive infrastructure, which caused it to lose some personality, as the designer put it. The focus shifted to the towering trees as playtesters found it enjoyable to bounce off them as pilots and dodge around them as titans, leading to the decision to place the trees in the center of the action. Announced last month, the Expedition pack includes the "War Games" and "Runoff" maps and will cost $9.99. Those that pick up the $25 Titanfall season pass will receive Expedition in addition to two other map packs down the road. [Image: Respawn Entertainment]
Titanfall nears 1 million sold in three weeks
Many looked at Titanfall as being the first tentpole game for the Xbox One, but how many people actually bought it? It turns out 925,000 units were sold through for the quarter, according to publisher Electronic Arts' latest earnings call. Unfortunately, Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore was citing NPD numbers and those don't include digital or world-wide sales, and thus copies bought via EA's Origin PC service or from the Xbox One's dashboard don't factor into that tally. The Xbox 360 version? It's "off to a great start," but Moore didn't go into specifics. Back in April, the NPD reported that the mech game was a top-seller for March and the second-best performing game for the Xbox One -- seeing hard numbers gives a better picture for how well gaming is doing on the new consoles. While Titanfall's numbers are impressive, it's worth remembering that Infamous: Second Son sold more than that on a single platform globally (Titanfall's numbers combined the PC and Xbox One sales) in nine days both physically and via digitally distributed copies.
Respawn co-founder Zampella jumpstarts new mobile game studio
Vince Zampella, co-creator of the Call of Duty series and co-founder of Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment, has partnered with slot machine industry veteran Larry Pacey to form a new mobile game studio, VentureBeat reports. The pair's new Los Angeles-based company, Nuclear Division, currently employs less than a dozen people, but has the potential to expand to around 50 employees, Pacey estimates. Zampella initially planned to introduce mobile game development at Respawn, but decided to split off into a separate venture so that the Titanfall studio could continue to focus on console games. Zampella assured VentureBeat that he has no plans to abandon console development, and hopes that his new venture will benefit Respawn. "I would apply learnings from this back to Respawn, and I think that would help future-proof both of these companies," he said. [Image: Nuclear Division]
UK Charts: Titanfall stands tall
If Lionel Richie was infatuated with giant mechanical killing machines rather than ladies, he'd be singing an ode to Titanfall right now. Respawn's shooter is once, twice, three times the UK No. 1 in a row - that's four times in total if you include its debut week in March. There's not much else to say about this week's UK charts; the top ten is made up of the same games from last week, except for Battlefield 4 replacing Trials Fusion. As for Titanfall, it's dominated most of April and it has the chance to keep that run going in May, at least until the arrivals of Wolfenstein: The New Order, Watch Dogs and Mario Kart 8. [Image: EA]
Take an Expedition into Titanfall's War Games map
Following an initial reveal earlier this month, developer Respawn Entertainment has now graced us with a handful of screenshots and solid information on the War Games map included in Titanfall's upcoming "Expedition" DLC pack. Unlike the game's other maps, War Games isn't real. That is, it's even less real than the video game's other maps as it takes place within the same simulator players strolled through during Titanfall's training mission. As a result, the developers were able to craft imaginative structures with a focus toward acrobatics without having to worry about things like design congruency and sensible architectural layouts. This virtual setting also allowed Respawn's level designers to incorporate level battlefields for the game's titular giant robots, free of debris that might distract from the task of blowing apart opposing robots. For more, pay a visit to the Titanfall website where designer Jason McCord offers his take on War Games. This map, along with two others, will debut in the Expedition DLC at some point in May, at a price of $10. [Image: EA]
UK Charts: Titanfall holds No.1 spot, 2014 FIFA World Cup debuts 2nd
It's been a while since British soccer fans have seen their nations associated with the words "World Cup" and anything even remotely approaching second place - that said, at least England can say it won the damn thing once. Enough ancient history: 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is the highest-placing new release in the UK this week, but unlike FIFA 14 it only reached second place; that top spot is still held by Titanfall. Maybe the most telling thing is FIFA 14 is only two places behind the World Cup game in 4th, some seven months after it was released. It's lower down the charts where things get a bit more interesting this week. The physical Deluxe copies of Trials Fusion, which contain the game's season pass, did well enough to see the grueling bike-former debut in 7th place. Meanwhile, you have to go all the way down to 20th to find colorful MMO Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, which has just made its debut on PS4. On the other hand, Square Enix seemed pretty upbeat about the game reaching 2 million registrations last week, so make of that what you will. [Image: EA]
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Titanfall is the $37 daily deal in Amazon's Gold Box today
Look high into the sky today and you'll see $37 copies of Titanfall, which are ejecting from Amazon Gold Boxes as per the retailer's daily deal. That price applies across all platforms - that includes the newly released Xbox 360 version - so if you've been tempted to mech time for Respawn's shooter, today might be the day to do it. Amazon is springing a few other Lightning gaming deals over the next day or so, including ones on PS3 Dafoedrama Beyond: Two Souls and both the regular and portable flavors of Batman: Arkham Origins. Check out the Gold Box page for all the deals and their times. [Image: EA]
Behind-the-scenes 'Final Hours of Titanfall' app now available
The Final Hours of Titanfall, an in-depth look at the development of Respawn Entertainment's first game, is now available to download on iPad, Windows Surface as well as PC and Mac via Origin for $1.99. Versions of the app are also planned for Android and iPhone, and both a text-only version for Kindle as well as an audiobook version are being considered. Created over a four-year span by Geoff Keighley, the app is a 25,000-word deep-dive on Titanfall's development and the legal issues that Respawn co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella settled with Activision in May 2012 pryor to West's departure from the developer in March 2013. Keighley conducted interviews with over 80 people to chronicle Respawn's beginnings, which cover the "toxic mix of office politics and creative struggles the build the next great videogame franchise." It also features concept art and videos from the early days of the game's development. This isn't Keighley's first foray into longform app development, as the behind-the-scenes "Final Hours" series includes an episodic webseries on Square Enix's Tomb Raider reboot, an app for Portal 2 and one detailing the creation of Mass Effect 3. [Image: EA Games]
Respawn to increase frequency of Titanfall updates
Respawn plans to improve its "update tempo" for future improvements to Titanfall, upping the frequency of announcements related to updates as well as the patches themselves. Game Director Steve Fukuda broke down the developer's update plans in a recent blog, noting that one part of the game's updates will "tend the garden and keep the weeds out," such as last week's changes to the game's Gooser Challenge. Fukuda also discussed both convenience and infrastructural features, the former making "life more pleasant" for players in the game. Future convenience feature additions to Titanfall include the ability to rename custom loadouts and set custom loadouts specific to each of the game's mode. Infrastructural additions include items like the private online match mode that arrived last week. "Whenever possible, we want to get these kinds of features out early in beta form, in order to get your feedback and arrive at the best possible result through multiple iterations," Fukuda wrote of the infrastructural features. He added that "tangible" content for Titanfall is on the way, including new maps, game modes, a new burn card set and "Nose Art" insignias for those that want to customize their titans. [Image: EA Games]
Titanfall Mythbusters: A falling titan can destroy an evac ship
Titanfall isn't just the name of Respawn's popular online shooter, it's also one of the most satisfying attacks in said game. Drop a titan on a pilot and the pilot becomes bloody goo. Drop one on another titan, and that titan becomes burning scrap. But what if you were to drop a titan on an enemy evac ship? That idea is put to the test at the 1:52 mark of the above clip. While you can destroy an evac ship with a falling titan, it's not as simple as it sounds. They key problem is that a titan will fall right through an evac ship as if it weren't there. However, on certain maps, when the evac ship arrives to pick up its would-be passengers, it may fly low enough to make itself vulnerable. In such a situation, if you drop a titan right next to the ship, the splash damage from the giant robot's earthshaking impact will blow the transport to pieces, along with anyone who happens to be comfortably relaxing inside. Difficult? Yes. Totally worth it? Clearly. [Image: Respawn Entertainment]
Titanfall reclaims UK No. 1 after landing on Xbox 360
Titanfall became the second game to return to the top of the UK charts in 2014, after forcing FIFA 14, the first game, to eject and drop into third. Respawn's mech-crammed shooter saw a 220 percent boost in sales following its arrival on Xbox 360, and that was enough to see it keep Lego: The Hobbit just beneath the summit in second place. It's a sign of a quieter April that retailer promotions helped South Park: The Stick of Truth rise up to fourth. That said, last week wasn't quiet enough to take Kinect: Sports Rivals into the top ten, and Rare's motion-controlled latest had to settle for 14th place. Football Manager 2014 placed 18th thanks to its spring transfer onto Vita, and the coaching sim is just ahead of The Elder Scrolls Online in 19th, which saw a sizable drop after debuting the week before in the No. 2 spot.
Titanfall free updates bringing 2v2 Last Titan Standing, Titan burn cards
Titanfall developer Respawn announced at their PAX East panel today that they'll be bringing new modes, among various other tweaks, to their heartwarming game about soldiers and the robots they so dearly love. One such mode will be a 2v2 variant of Last Titan Standing, where all players begin with their walking deathmachines. Considering how well that went for us, maybe we'll stay away. But then, we're masochists, so ... Respawn said that they'll also be introducing new ways to make the titular Titans more tantalizing: Titan-themed burn cards and Titan insignias are on the to-do list, as is a new matchmaking system that will let players use hashtags to filter through private games until they find one they like. Lastly, Respawn will also be introducing "rifts," which will introduce various tweaks to already-existing modes. All these micro-updates will be free, while Titanfall's first map pack DLC, Expedition, will cost $10. [Image: EA]
Titanfall's first DLC map pack, Expedition, due in May
Titanfall pilots that are a bit fatigued from stomping around the same set of maps, take note - the game's first round of DLC maps is due in May under the title of "Expedition." Polygon reports that the three-pack of maps will include "Swampland," a stretch of alien ruins that offers trees for wallrunning, "Runoff," a map that incorporates water, and "War Games," a map that's hosted within the game's training simulator. "Expedition" is the first of three $10 map packs that are included in Titanfall's season pass, which was announced in March alongside its $25 price tag. The pass provides a $5 discount from what the combined price of the three map packs would be if bought separately. [Image: Respawn Entertainment]
Titanfall won't come to Xbox 360 Games On Demand
Titanfall publisher EA has nixed potential plans to bring the robot-infested shooter to the Xbox 360 as a digital download. A new entry on EA's help site explains the decision: "After extensive testing, we felt that [a digital release] simply did not represent the true Titanfall experience and it was decided not to release a Games on Demand version. We hope players understand this decision was all about quality and making sure you get the best Titanfall experience." While this is disappointing news for anyone counting down the ongoing death of physical media, we will remind would-be mech pilots that the disc-based version of the game has been performing admirably in our ongoing State of Service tests. Our latest report notes minor, isolated issues in the PC version, but otherwise all of the game's servers appear to be chugging along nicely. [Image: EA]
Titanfall State of Service: Final Verdict
This is State of Service, an ongoing review of the online service of a recently launched game. See our scored review of Titanfall here. Friday, April 11 | Final Verdict Overall State of Service: Good Summary: Stable server performance. Isolated issues on PC. In its first month of availability, neither the Xbox One or PC versions of Titanfall have run into debilitating or pervasive problems. Apart from a few brief outages, Titanfall's performance has been stable, with developer Respawn deploying a handful of updates, including a special matchmaking pool for cheaters and improved matchmaking in general. Yesterday, Respawn also added the ability to play private matches and issued a number of balance tweaks and bug fixes. Joystiq staffers have encountered no serious problems with either the PC or Xbox One versions during Titanfall's launch month. Some users have reported technical problems on PC, though these seem to be isolated and most have workaround solutions. We've spent some time with the Xbox 360 version since its launch on Tuesday and, while it's visually less impressive and its frame rate isn't as solid, online play appears on par with what we've experienced on PC and Xbox One. In short, the online-only warfare of Titanfall seems to be running as intended, and we're comfortable declaring that its overall State of Service is Good. The quality of online play has been consistent, and Respawn seems committed to delivering updates and listening to its community.
Amazon UK, Asda selling Xbox One at PS4 price of £350
Amazon's UK arm and high street retailer Asda are currently offering the Titanfall Xbox One bundle at £349, the same price tag Sony UK puts on the PS4. The Xbox One originally launched at £430 in the country before Microsoft reduced its "estimated retail price" to £399 earlier this year. Amazon and Asda's pricing constitutes an almost 20 percent reduction from the Xbox One's launch price, a situation mirrored this time last year by the Wii U following its sales struggles. Last we heard, the Xbox One sold 3 million units by the close of 2013 following its launch in November; there's been no update on that figure since the turn of the year. Meanwhile, the Xbox One's regular price remains $499 in the US, although Microsoft is still selling it at $449 on its online store for a limited time. [Image: Microsoft]
Titanfall update with private matches arriving 'later today' [Update: Details added]
Titanfall will receive an update "later today," Respawn Entertainment tweeted this morning. While it didn't offer a full list of details for the update, nor the platforms it will land on, the update will introduce private match support. "Update coming later today with private matches, gooser update, etc. We'll post lots of info on it as it rolls out," the tweet reads. Respawn Co-Founder Vince Zampella said in March that private matches were one of the gameplay elements the developer planned to add after Titanfall's launch, one of the "things that we want in the game that we didn't get to ship in the final game." The update will also tweak the Gooser Challenge in the game, which the developer also indicated was coming as of late March. The challenge previously required players to kill 50 ejecting pilots, which will be reduced to just five, according to the prior developer blog on the matter. "We went a bit too far with this challenge, especially considering the unique conditions that have to be met in order to have the opportunity to get a kill on an ejecting Pilot," Respawn wrote at the time. Update: Respawn posted a whole mess of details to its official site for today's patch, which spans all platforms. To name a few, the update will introduce a public test of its private match mode, which supports two to 12 players, a fix for the wall hack exploit on PC, a change to the party colors in the game's mini-map as well as a shortcut to the Xbox One's party app, accessible from all menus. [Image: Respawn Entertainment]
Titanfall State of Service: Week Four
This is State of Service, an ongoing review of the online service of a recently launched game. See our scored review of Titanfall here. Tuesday, April 8 | T-minus 2 days until final verdict Current State of Service: Moderate Summary: Matchmaking update deployed. Some users experiencing longer than usual matchmaking times and connection issues. On the whole, Titanfall's online service appears to be running just fine after four weeks on PC and Xbox One, though some Titanfall players have been running into problems. Since the recent matchmaking update to Hardpoint and Attrition modes, some users have reported very long matchmaking times – anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes – or connection issues. Respawn itself has noted that matchmaking will take longer as a result of the more selective system, but enough users have encountered issues that the developer has lessened the effectiveness of the update in order to speed up matchmaking while it irons out the kinks. Respawn is also taking feedback on the matchmaking update in the Titanfall forums. For its part, Joystiq staff members haven't encountered any noteworthy issues since the matchmaking update was released. We'll be monitoring matchmaking performance over the next two days. Finally, after a recent delay, the Xbox 360 version of Titanfall has arrived as well. We'll be spending some time with it this week, and will incorporate some impressions into Titanfall's final State of Service update this Thursday. If you encounter any problems with Titanfall, let us know in the comments or on Joystiq's Twitter or Facebook accounts (use the hashtag #sos and don't forget to specify your platform!).
Titanfall averages 46.5 frames-per-second on Xbox 360, Digital Foundry reports
The recently released Xbox 360 version of Respawn Entertainment's mech-dropping first-person shooter Titanfall maintains an average unlocked framerate of 46.5 frames-per-second, gaming performance analysis site Digital Foundry reports. Digital Foundry finds that the Xbox 360 version of Titanfall runs at a 1040x600 native resolution, compared to the Xbox One's 1408x792 resolution. The Xbox 360 version boasts an unlocked framerate of up to 60 frames-per-second, along with an option to lock the framerate at 30 FPS to eliminate screen tearing and input lag. Presentation-wise, Digital Foundry notes that the Xbox 360 version of Titanfall has "a necessary reduction in texture detail compared to the other versions, but nothing that overtly compromises the look of the game." The testing results are consistent with pre-release claims from porting studio Bluepoint Games, which promised a framerate above 30 frames-per-second in the final Xbox 360 version of Titanfall. [Video: Digital Foundry / Respawn Entertainment]
Here's how Titanfall's Xbox 360 and Xbox One versions differ
We've long known that Titanfall was coming to the Xbox 360 in addition to the Xbox One but, aside from that sliver of info, there hasn't been much to go on -- unless you count release delays, that is. Now we're learning that on paper, at least, it won't stray too far from the Xbox One version's shadow when it comes out next week. The last-gen version has all of the maps, modes and features of the Respawn-developed game, but naturally some concessions have been made to accommodate the 360's nine-year-old hardware. As developer Bluepoint Games' senior producer Daryl Allison writes, the game can't hit the same frame rates as its sibling, but it runs "above 30 fps" -- around half the speed you'd get on the Xbox One. Update: We still haven't seen the actual game on Xbox 360, but copies are apparently out there already. One YouTuber posted a video of the intro sequence including the BluePoint Games logo, but that's all you'll get since the servers aren't available yet -- check out the so-close-but-yet-so-far tease after the break.
