Titanfall Fans Mourn Canceled Extraction Shooter: Is This the End for Titanfall 3?

Fans of the beloved Titanfall series are grappling with disappointment following the announcement that EA has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment. The news comes with the added blow of layoffs affecting numerous individuals across Respawn's incubation, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience teams.

According to Bloomberg, the canceled project, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set within the Titanfall universe. While this isn't the long-awaited Titanfall 3 sequel, the absence of any new developments since Titanfall 2 has left many fans disheartened. The sentiment is palpable, with one player expressing, "I just fell to my knees at Walmart," and another exclaiming, "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE."

However, not all reactions were negative. Some fans view the cancellation as a potential saving grace for the franchise, arguing that an extraction shooter might not have resonated well with the community. One redditor posited, "Best thing that could've happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned. A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say 'see, the people just don't like Titanfall anymore,' instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS."

Echoing this sentiment, another fan responded, "I’m fine with this one being canceled," followed by, "Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance." The dissatisfaction with the extraction shooter genre was further highlighted by a fan who suggested, "So sick and tired of 'extraction shooters'. They're so formulaic and boring. I don't want to loot bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving thru big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning and titans blastin'."

Another fan summarized their feelings with, "Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay," indicating a mixed bag of emotions among the fanbase.

The layoffs at Respawn affected approximately 100 jobs, spanning development, publishing, and QA roles on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which was reported on back in March, with the other believed to be the aforementioned Titanfall universe extraction shooter.

These cuts are part of a broader pattern of layoffs at EA over recent years. Earlier this year, EA restructured BioWare, moving developers to other projects and laying off others. In 2023, the company eliminated 50 jobs at BioWare and an unknown number more at Codemasters. In 2024, a larger restructuring led to 670 workers being laid off company-wide, including around two dozen workers at Respawn.

In 2023, it was revealed that Respawn Entertainment had worked on Titanfall 3 "in earnest" for 10 months before shifting focus to Apex Legends. Mohammad Alavi, who was the narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before its cancellation, shared insights with The Burnettwork about the development process.

“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right? We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right? And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?”

Alavi explained that the decision to pivot away from Titanfall 3 was influenced by challenges in the multiplayer component and the rising popularity of the Battle Royale genre, particularly with the release of PUBG in 2017. “The multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,” Alavi said. “But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it’s really good, but it’s just too much. It’s cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play a year, two years,’ right? So we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying. And then PUBG came out.”

The shift in focus was driven by the team's enthusiasm for a Battle Royale mode using Titanfall 3 classes, leading to the decision to cancel Titanfall 3 in favor of developing what would become Apex Legends. Alavi reflected on the decision, saying, “And at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’ We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.’ And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!”