Everybody shivered and felt a bit grimmer about things.
Thoughts, firstly and most importantly, to all concerned.
And thoughts to Respawn as a wider entity too.
Because this team is absolutely staggeringly good at single-player games, and here’s one we won’t get.
Inevitably, it sent me back to thoughts ofTitanfall 2and its glorious campaign.
It’s the loss of another single-player game by this team that knows how to make single-player campaigns sing.
I didn’t go back to the game itself, but I think I will tonight.
My first thoughts were of memory, where Titanfall 2 lives, and it lives particularly well.
Some games are just made for memory aren’t they?
They settle into such lovely, vibrant shapes.
But one memory always stands out over all others.
It’s the bit where your friend tells you he has a gun in his head.
An absolutely brilliant gun.
In my memory, this comes at the end of act two-ish or around there.
It’s the low point of the game.
(Maybe it’s early act three.)
Your Titan buddy has been gravely injured and you’re stuck inside enemy territory.
(It’s definitely act three isn’t it.)
But Titanfall 2 isn’t a lesser game.
Let us stop for a moment to talk about the smart pistol.
Its reticule fills the screen.
And it’s not just satisfying - it’s satisfying specifically because it’s so easy.
You’re Doctor Manhattan, doing the universe’s dark work just by pointing and blinking.
Because the game does not just get harder.
The curve is not a curve, but rather a funny series of steps up and down.
It ebbs and it flows.
The smart pistol is Titanfall 2’s middle eight.
That’s what Respawn understands.
It’s not all hard, and it doesn’t just get harder over time.
Seriously, who wouldn’t want more of that?
