A new Titanfall spinoff is in the works, and it’ll be out sooner than anyone could possibly guess. In fact, internet rumors (and word from our own sources) suggests that it’ll be out this Monday.
The game isn’t officially announced just yet, but word leaked out this morning thanks to esports journalist Rod Breslau. As Breslau reported today, it’s called Apex Legends and will be out on Monday for PC, Xbox, and PS4. It’s a free-to-play battle royale that, interestingly, won’t let you use the Titan mech suits that make Titanfall so iconic. You’ll have supernatural MOBA-like hero abilities and play either solo or in a team of three as you battle other players for delicious chicken dinners.
We’ve heard all of those same details. A tipster sent me some info about Apex Legends early last month—“It plays like Titanfall mixed with Overwatch and Blackout from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4,” they told me at the time—and from what we’ve heard, publisher EA held an event for streamers and YouTubers this week to show off the game, which is likely how the news leaked.
Here’s another interesting tidbit: As I was reporting on EA’s purchase of Titanfall developer Respawn in the fall of 2017—a move that was forced by a Nexon bid for the studio and may have been directly connected to the closure of Visceral—I heard from a Respawn source that Titanfall 3 was well into development and that the studio had been looking to release it by the end of 2018. The rationale, that source said, was that the game’s underlying technology was starting to feel dated and that Titanfall 3 might not feel or look as good if it came out too much later. (Like the previous two Titanfall games, Titanfall 3 used a modified version of Valve’s Source engine.)
Perhaps the studio decided to switch engines for Titanfall 3, releasing Apex Legends (which is also reportedly on Source) as a stopgap as it pushed back the release of a proper third Titanfall game. Or perhaps the work Respawn had done for Titanfall 3 wound up evolving into this spinoff game. No matter what, the third Titanfall appears to be way down the road.
Expect Apex Legends to be announced very soon, perhaps tomorrow at the Super Bowl or on Monday as a not-so-much-of-a-surprise reveal. This will be the first of two games Respawn has planned for this year, in addition to Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, which is slated to come out in the fall.