Respawn worked on Titanfall 3 "in earnest" for 10 months before shifting focus to Apex Legends
Titanfall 3 was in development for almost a year before it was cancelled for Apex Legends.
Speaking with The Burnettwork, former Titanfall designer Mohammad Alavi shared the story of this «crazy cut» in his career.
«Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like 'OK, we're going to make Titanfall 3'. And, we worked on Titanfall 3 for 10 months in earnest. We had the tech for it, and multiple missions going,» Alavi revealed.
The team even had a first playable version working, which Alavi described as being as good if not better than what the team had before. However, in Alavi's own words, it was only incrementally better, and nothing «revolutionary» for the series.
«We were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2,» he stated, with the project's multiplayer team still having a «hell of a time» trying to sort that aspect of the game.
At the same time, the hugely-popular battle royale PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds launched, and its success caught the Titanfall team's attention. «We came back from break and we talked about it, and we were like 'yeah… we need to pivot',» Alavi admitted.
«We literally cancelled Titanfall 3 ourselves because we were like 'we can make this game and it'll be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing which is clearly amazing'.»
Thus, work on Apex Legends began.
«Don't get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall,» Alavi said, calling Titanfall 2 his «crowning achievement». Switching over to work on Apex Legends was ultimately «the right call», he concluded.
Not that anyone initially told EA about this move. Alavi admitted the publisher didn't know about these plans for another six months, because the team wanted it
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