If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Respawn doing anything but shooters is not "the smart thing to do"

Although it's determined to offer something fresh and new with Titanfall, Respawn stuck to its strengths when it elected to make a shooter for is first project.

"The choice to do another FPS - we're doing something new, we wanted the idea to be different and new in terms of gameplay and mechanics," Respawn boss Vince Zampella told GameInformer.

"Breaking farther beyond that and doing a racing game or something we're not familiar with wasn't the smart thing to do. For us it's something that's in our wheelhouse that we can innovate on and do something new and expand from there. It was just kind of a natural choice."

Respawn's contract with EA allowed them plenty of creative freedom, so before the team settled on the idea of Titanfall, it tried a lot of different things - prototypes and plots in various genres.

"When you can do anything, what do you do? Our team grew pretty fast, so we had a lot of people with a lot of ideas, and they all wanted their idea to be number one," Zampella said.

"So we had to figure out how do you focus that down and keep everybody happy. It was a pretty tough process."

One thing the develoepr didn't really consider was moving away from the traditional console space.

"It's something you look at – obviously a lot of games are going that way," Zampella commented.

"I think there is some truth to it being the future, but I don't think it's the only future. There has always been the blockbuster, and I think there always will be.

"Maybe people will buy less of them, but I don't always want to play a game where it's free to play and a dollar for this and a dollar for that. I have some, I play some, but it's not what everybody wants."

Titanfall is due on PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in 2014.

Sign in and unlock a world of features

Get access to commenting, homepage personalisation, newsletters, and more!

Related topics
About the Author
Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

Contributor

Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

Comments