Titanfall Devs Considered VR, Single Player Modes

[Steven Bogos]

Titanfall Devs Considered VR, Single Player Modes

Titanfall producer Drew McCoy said VR in Titanfall would make you sick - due to the wallrunnning.

Virtual Reality is the hot topic these days, with many developers experimenting with Oculus Rift support in their games. But don't expect it anytime soon in Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall, as producer Drew McCoy thinks the games high-speed wallrunning antics would make players hurl. "I don't know that people are going to be able to keep their lunch down [in a VR mode]," McCoy said. "Maybe in a titan because you're stuck to that horizontal plane. But if you're trying to wall-run and look down six stories, I think people are going to barf everywhere."

He added that Respawn has a few Oculus Rift development kits in the office, and that he even has one at home. He described VR tech as "really cool," but simply not for a game like Titanfall.

McCoy also said that the team actually created a full singleplayer prototype for the game, that was scrapped "years" before launch. "We did work on a single-player prototype before we decided what we were going to eventually make, and this was years ago," McCoy recalled.

Before you start furiously typing out your comments, McCoy did clarify that, "It will be interesting to see the Internet's reaction of 'Oh, look at that, they've got a singleplayer in their back pocket!' No, no, no. We prototyped this tiny little thing."

When asked if the team would ever consider reviving the singleplayer prototype, McCoy was not optimistic. "Probably not," he said. "[Titanfall] was never envisioned as a solo experience."

Respawn recently announced an upcoming DLC map pack [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/133692-Titanfalls-First-DLC-Map-Pack-Launches-in-May-10-for-3-Maps] for Titanfall at its PAX East panel, which will launch as early as next month. Do you think they should reconsider their "no singleplayer" stance for the game's next DLC?

Source: Gamespot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/if-titanfall-had-virtual-reality-support-you-might-barf-everywhere/1100-6418958/]

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[Ferisar]

They probably shouldn't, at least not yet. The problem is, this would be the exact -opposite- of what other shooters have been doing. Say what you want about CoD campaigns being short, but at least they had -some- flair to them, back in the older titles especially. If Titnfall developed a singleplayer with the kind of enthusiasm that this interview let us see, it would probably end up a massive, uninspired tack-on. If the devs want to do it, then yeah, go for it. Besides that... Meh. It's not worth it.

If they ever decide to "sequalize" (and let's face it, they totally will), maybe consider it then. Either that or deliver that online multiplayer campaign you've been talking about, instead of whatever is in the game right now Everything outside of that would just be an afterthought.

Another thing they could do theoretically do is just add horde-modes or "missions" that may introduce the player to the game further, but there's no guarantee they won't suffer the same fate.

Indifferent about the VR comment.

 

[1Life0Continues]

When asked if the team would ever consider reviving the singleplayer prototype, McCoy was not optimistic. "Probably not," he said. "[Titanfall] was never envisioned as a solo experience."

And this is why I don't envision myself ever playing it. I am intrigued by the idea of the game, but I won't play multiplayer. I want to explore freely, slowly if necessary, and have fun wallrunning in places to get to others etc. With a bunch of other people trying to pound me into the ground while I'm having fun with something else entirely, that isn't possible.

Still, I'm glad it exists if only because it proves that the latest is not always the best (Source engine still looking good) and mechanical gameplay is at least trumping graphics. Now if only story could get the same respect. But baby steps.

I'm against forced multiplayer as a rule, and I personally think multiplayer modes should be sold separately from single player experiences. But maybe that's just me. No single player, no sale. *shrug*

 

[Compatriot Block]

I think that because it is their game, they should not feel obligated to add any player-counts that they don't want to.

If it was designed and marketed as a multiplayer-only game, nobody was tricked into expecting a solo campaign.

 

[Caiphus]

Well, good for them on making the game they wanted to make, I guess.

Still, I would have been much more likely to buy it with a singleplayer mode, but whatever. It certainly sounds like it has sold well enough without my 60bux.

As for VR, I'm personally looking forward to it, but yeah. People got sick playing Mirror's Edge, just by looking at their TVs. It'd make sense to be concerned about putting parkour in a VR game. Hopefully the tech will become good enough to overcome those problems, but who knows?

 

[The White Hunter]

And this is why I don't envision myself ever playing it. I am intrigued by the idea of the game, but I won't play multiplayer. I want to explore freely, slowly if necessary, and have fun wallrunning in places to get to others etc. With a bunch of other people trying to pound me into the ground while I'm having fun with something else entirely, that isn't possible.

Still, I'm glad it exists if only because it proves that the latest is not always the best (Source engine still looking good) and mechanical gameplay is at least trumping graphics. Now if only story could get the same respect. But baby steps.

I'm against forced multiplayer as a rule, and I personally think multiplayer modes should be sold separately from single player experiences. But maybe that's just me. No single player, no sale. *shrug*

Frankly I agree that singleplayer should be sold seperately from multiplayer, particularly in Triple-A titles. Tomb Raider for example should've had the option to forgo the multiplayer and pay less because I was never going to bother, the same for Uncharted.

BF, barring the excellent Bad Company games, consistently delivers underwhelming and disappointing campaigns with drastic control variations form the multiplayer, same engine, but pretty much function as seperate games apart froma few locales.

Call of Duty I mostly played for the campaign and co-op, until Ghosts went and was shit at everything, and just buying those options would have been great for me.

As for forced multiplayer, Titanfall is hat it is, it was designed as a multiplayer shooter with MOBA elements and it does that job spectacularly, a tacked on single player would only have disappointed, and the campaign is rather shoddy as is. Bots would be a niec addition though.

 

[Something Amyss]

If it was never designed that way, why did they design a single-player deal at all, even one scrapped "years" ago?

I think that because it is their game, they should not feel obligated to add any player-counts that they don't want to.

They should feel "obligated" to shape their commercial product to better sell to the consumer. You know, seeing as they're a business trying to sell you something.

It certainly sounds like it has sold well enough without my 60bux.

Have you heard something I haven't? Last I checked, Microsoft and EA were both being super evasive about sales figures. VG Chartz lists its current sales at 1.4 million worldwide, and while a million is still a pretty good number I have trouble seeing that as being enough to justify the COD-level budget and the "Jesus has returned, and He brought Elvis, Kurt Cobain, and Michael Jackson back from the dead to celebrate!"-level of marketing.

I mean, this is supposed to be the next big IP and was produced and marketed as such. But when Microsoft and EA get cagey about their sales figures, it's probably not a good sign that this is doing well. Meanwhile, Sony was bragging about 1 million sales of Infamous3: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son one week after launch. As PS4 exclusive. I doubt CoD is shaking in their booties just yet, but still.

Anyway, this could end up being a game that doesn't make money despite what should be good sales. Because they banked on phenomenal sales.

Don't get me wrong, it could very well be that they've sold ten million copies and have decided to be...Coy about it. But the more likely answer is that they probably could have used your sixty bux.

 

[Caiphus]

Have you heard something I haven't?

Haha, nope. Just the vgchartz sales, which I interpreted more positively than you, clearly. But yeah. Vgchartz is showing 1.25 million for the xbox one, versus 1.65m for CoD Ghosts. One's been out for longer, and had Christmas. The other was tremendously hyped, and exclusive. Out of an install base of ~4-4.5m consoles, that's not tooo bad. I dunno, we'll probably need to wait until the 360 sales before we know for sure.

I dont know what the budget was for Titanfall? You say CoD-level, does Activision actually spend that much money on CoD? I guess I never tried to find out. CoD is pretty iterative, they can probably shit sequels out reasonably economically. But sure, you're referring to the ludicrous sales some blockbuster games (Tomb Raider, for instance) apparently need to break even. Dunno, with the lack of single player, and the fact that it's a new IP that had to be built from scratch, I don't really know how to guesstimate Titanfall's production budget. Although marketing bills seem to be astronomical for these games, you're right. And Titanfall certainly got marketed up the wazoo.

Microsoft also might've paid a decent amount for exclusive rights but that's probably neither here nor there if we're talking about whether the sales were high enough.

I dunno. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

Edit: You'd think I would have learned how to quote by now.

Further edit: Oh, I probably should have talked about meeting expectations more, rather than just profit. Since that was your main talking point.

EA did two things rather quickly after Titanfall's release: they set the gears in motion for a sequel, but also announced that they were dropping the exclusivity deal. That strikes me as saying that sales were at least decent, but not up to expectations. And, chances are, they were unhappy with the Xbox One's performance out of the gate.

 

[Vault Citizen]

I don't mind the lack of Single Player mode that much, the thing that is really stopping me from buying this on the 360 is the lack of local, split screen multiplayer.

 

[Scars Unseen]

They should feel "obligated" to shape their commercial product to better sell to the consumer. You know, seeing as they're a business trying to sell you something.

Highly disagree. The way I see it, that's exactly the kind of thinking that get gets us bland "appeal to everyone" games. Granted, their choices steered me away from buying Titanfall, but I would rather developers make the game they want and let me buy the games I like than have them make the game they think I(and Brad and Suzie and whoever the fuck else) want.

 

[Something Amyss]

The way I see it, that's exactly the kind of thinking that get gets us bland "appeal to everyone" games.

And that this is about Titanfall, that's like arguing that the end result of socialism is poverty in a country where half the people already have no jobs. At best, it's a silly argument, at worst it's utterly redundant.

Besides, "appeal to everyone" games have the issue of sales. You're trying to endjam a ridiculous worst-case scenario that doesn't even work, because actually crafting to appeal to your target audience is the exact opposite.

But seriously, do you think that Titanfall, with its huge budget and shiny graphics and marketing that stopped just short of rearranging stars to advertise in the night sky, was ever going to be anything other than a game designed to appeal broadly. Come on. The argument is completely ridiculous here.

 

[Sanunes]

I am pleased that they didn't add single player to the game even if it means I don't have that much interest in it. To me it means they made the game they wanted to and didn't bother listening to the internet about how they should make the game which has been plaguing the game development for awhile.

As far as VR goes I wouldn't have been interested even if they included it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Haha, nope. Just the vgchartz sales, which I interpreted more positively than you, clearly. But yeah. Vgchartz is showing 1.25 million for the xbox one, versus 1.65m for CoD Ghosts. One's been out for longer, and had Christmas. The other was tremendously hyped, and exclusive. Out of an install base of ~4-4.5m consoles, that's not tooo bad. I dunno, we'll probably need to wait until the 360 sales before we know for sure.

Oi with the poodles already.

We know the sales of the 360 version of Ghosts, and it's at 9 million. Just counting the Microsoft iterations, we have a known property that sold much bigger and is being touted in multiple levels of failure. Down 20% from X, 50% from Y, did not meet expectations or sales markers, critically lukewarm, etc.

That they're hiding should be telling in and of itself.

Meanwhile, CoD Ghosts is such an issue for Activision it's mentioned heavily in their financial reports.

I'd also point out that Ghosts has been almost perpetually on sale since like 2 weeks after launch. That boosts numbers, I'm sure. I even bought it on sale so I could play with my friends. The question is, does that turn into profitability? So far, it has not.

But back to Infamouse: Second Son of Mickey, this was a less hyped game that's an actual, literal exclusive on a console with only a slightly larger install base, and it managed to do a million units in a week. Can we process that for a moment?

But sure, you're referring to the ludicrous sales some blockbuster games (Tomb Raider, for instance) apparently need to break even.

"Some" becoming fairly standard for large titles, you mean?

Dunno, with the lack of single player, and the fact that it's a new IP that had to be built from scratch, I don't really know how to guesstimate Titanfall's production budget. Although marketing bills seem to be astronomical for these games, you're right. And Titanfall certainly got marketed up the wazoo.

I would imagine that without assets to borrow from, it's going to be significantly sharper. Though I would argue iterative or not, the assets themselves aren't as recycled in COD as people would have me believe.

but also announced that they were dropping the exclusivity deal. That strikes me as saying that sales were at least decent, but not up to expectations. And, chances are, they were unhappy with the Xbox One's performance out of the gate.

They were talking future titles not being exclusive before launch, so I doubt that has much to do with it.

We will have to wait and see, but let's not forget where I came in here. You had said "It certainly sounds like it has sold well enough without my 60bux."

Well, with the information we have, in the context we have, it doesn't sound like that. And it really does belie the "wait and see" approach. I mean, I haven't exactly called for the death of this or CoD yet (though if Ghosts is the best they can do, I'm not sure I even care if it survives). And Hell, Titanfall had me interested enough I would have bought it save for the reported paucity of content. Screw single player, I personally don't care. But I've read a bunch of other complaints in terms of amount of gameplay for the sixty bucks, and that's a problem for me. In short, I don't want it to fail or anything.

But in the end, wait and see or not, we're looking at silence from EA and Microsoft when even the "disappointing" CoD Ghosts had all sorts of PR in a week.

 

[William Dickbringer]

to be honest I would be happy with inviting friends into matches and playing against bots (don't have enough friends to get together and play ye ol lan party style)I would love that quite a bit but I've always been more a solo person

 

[Snotnarok]

I hope they reconsider their singleplayer stance, that's a nice thing to have in a game and I really like the art design behind the game.

Their DLC is .........disappointing with 3 maps for 10 bucks, I was expecting more, maybe there is more but it's going to be launched free along with the DLC- as in everyone gets the free stuff, just not the maps.

I really do like Titanfall but I was really hoping to hear there were limitations as this is the first in the series- because I do get it's hard to get new crap out there with new ideas. I was really hoping this was the launchpad to more expansive stuff including single player, horde mode and what not.

 

[faefrost]

"He described VR tech as "really cool," but simply not for a game like Titanfall."

And in one fell swoop he kind of sumarized the core problem with theis next looming VR attempt at a fad. if VR isn't for a game like Titanfall, or if it makes people hurl from a game like Titanfall, then what exactly is it for? Angry Birds VR?

 

[Ferisar]

"He described VR tech as "really cool," but simply not for a game like Titanfall."

And in one fell swoop he kind of sumarized the core problem with theis next looming VR attempt at a fad. if VR isn't for a game like Titanfall, or if it makes people hurl from a game like Titanfall, then what exactly is it for? Angry Birds VR?

Not necessarily. The amount of vertigo people get from high-octane arcadey shooters is already a lot without VR, there's little you can do to make that not true with it. It doesn't mean some of the single-player first person games may use VR very effectively, or any other game for that matter. Just a matter of functionality, really.

I'm guessing to make VR function in a game like Titanfall, compromises would have to be made around speed of movement or how fast you can turn, which... Is a bit of a problem. In a Killzone title, though, it could probably work because it has a more "slow and purposeful" feel to it (I can't speak for the newest one since I haven't played it).

 

[Zagzag]

I'm against forced multiplayer as a rule, and I personally think multiplayer modes should be sold separately from single player experiences.

That's pretty much what they did here, except they never made the single player. I seem to recall a dev stating that single player Titanfall would essentially be developing a different game, and I wish more developers followed this logic.

 

[Shuu]

I'm not interested in multiplayer, so I'm sure as hell not interested in a multiplayer only game. Team Fortress 2 was the acception, but note that TF2 wasn't sold a full bloody price! Everyone I know who's played it has told me the same thing: What's there is great, but it's incredibly insubstantial.

 

[Strazdas]

In my opinion there are only two type of games here: Singleplayer and miltiplayer. any game that tries to do both focuses on one and has second one just tacked on anyway. This was quite clearly a multiplayer by design, let it stay that way.

Virtual Reality is the hot topic these days, with many developers experimenting with Oculus Rift support in their games. But don't expect it anytime soon in Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall, as producer Drew McCoy thinks the games high-speed wallrunning antics would make players hurl. "I don't know that people are going to be able to keep their lunch down [in a VR mode]," McCoy said. "Maybe in a titan because you're stuck to that horizontal plane. But if you're trying to wall-run and look down six stories, I think people are going to barf everywhere."

nope, they wont barf. Your game does not look anywhere close good enough to make people think its the real thing and barf from whatever. they may barf from motion sickness if your VR wont be running at 60 fps though.