Respawn to Launch "New Twist on the Titanfall Universe" Following Apex's Popularity

AlphaAtlas

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In their Q3 2019 Earnings Conference Call, EA seemed to be quite happy with their recent Respawn acquisition. They repeatedly mention Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as one of their leading upcoming titles, and Andrew Wilson mentioned that Apex had "nearly 600,000 peak and current users in the middle of a Tuesday," and that it was "EA's biggest reveal ever by peak and current viewers." But EA also said that "we will drive the Titanfall universe forward with Apex Legends live service and a premium game later in the year." What EA means by "a new twist on the Titanfall universe" remains to be seen, but seeing how they use the term "premium" every time they mention the upcoming title, it's probably not a mobile spinoff like Diablo Immortal.

And while I don't have more to share on the particulars of what was coming for Titanfall, what I would say is Respawn, our tremendously creative team, they always anticipated that Apex Legends would be a spectacular game in the battle royale genre and that they would use that as a ramp point to continue to innovate and deliver a truly creative take on what Titanfall is in a premium context later on in the year.
 
watch how fast it plummets. That bosskey ftp battle royal game was also popular for a few days before it burned in the abyss.
 
If Titanfall 3 is anything at all like Apex then I have no interest in it. It's such a shame after the first 2 games were so amazing.
 
I tried Apex yesterday for a few rounds. So take my experience as just that, probably 5 matches and their training. I definitely preferred titanfall 1/2 pilot mechanics. I don't think you can wall run and it doesn't seem like everyone has a grapple or that it's as good. Reviving dead teammates seemed like too much effort. 60 people wasn't enough as I could go long periods of time without finding people. Having to choose which ammo boxes I wanted to carry was confusing and didn't add anything to gameplay. I'm fine with making you decide on two weapons but having to manage individual ammo types in your inventory slots really felt like way too much effort for low reward. In an RPG maybe, I just don't see the point in an FPS.

I like that you launch as a group vs in fortnite where you launch individually. I didn't play enough to get much feel for the different classes. People can soak a lot of damage and I'll need to figure out how to determine how much health they have remaining because I had no clue yesterday. My kids seemed to like it, but I'm not sure they liked it better than fortnite. I haven't played PUBG, my oldest son has it so I could see how he thinks they compare.

My first impressions were only so so. I'll try it again tonight. I really liked titanfall (though I haven't played it in a long time). Biggest downer for titanfall was that it was only 6 v 6.
 
The headline makes it sound like they made the decision based on the popularity of Apex, which would be totally ridiculous considering it hadn't even been out for two days at the time of the call.

It's too early to tell how popular the game will actually be, but a surprise launch of a *finished* game nobody knew about with no cost to play is a surefire way to generate some initial buzz. Early Access or a $20 price tag would have generated an entirely different result here.
 
EA also cut their revenue outlook because of weak Battlefield sales.

You get passive aggressive with people with legitimate suggestions (option for historical accurate models) and tell them not to buy the product, this is the result.


The headline makes it sound like they made the decision based on the popularity of Apex, which would be totally ridiculous considering it hadn't even been out for two days at the time of the call.


It's too early to tell how popular the game will actually be, but a surprise launch of a *finished* game nobody knew about with no cost to play is a surefire way to generate some initial buzz. Early Access or a $20 price tag would have generated an entirely different result here.

Exactly. I feel the surprise launch timing was done to coincide with their earnings report, because of the aforementioned issues. They wanted to soften the blow with some feel-good news.

1million users shortly after a free-product launch is nice, but it's by no means an indication of a revenue generator. How many of those users would have paid for the game? How many will stick around for more than a few weeks and/or when it becomes necessary to purchase microtransactions to keep playing? A million users unwilling to pay anything is a net-loss (expenses without revenue).
 
EA also cut their revenue outlook because of weak Battlefield sales.

You get passive aggressive with people with legitimate suggestions (option for historical accurate models) and tell them not to buy the product, this is the result.

and yet none of those ended up being the reason why the game sucked, lol. it was everything else that made it bad.
 
EA also cut their revenue outlook because of weak Battlefield sales.

You get passive aggressive with people with legitimate suggestions (option for historical accurate models) and tell them not to buy the product, this is the result.




Exactly. I feel the surprise launch timing was done to coincide with their earnings report, because of the aforementioned issues. They wanted to soften the blow with some feel-good news.

1million users shortly after a free-product launch is nice, but it's by no means an indication of a revenue generator. How many of those users would have paid for the game? How many will stick around for more than a few weeks and/or when it becomes necessary to purchase microtransactions to keep playing? A million users unwilling to pay anything is a net-loss (expenses without revenue).

In a game like that, people won't hang on for long they have to continually do work on the game adding new content otherwise people get bored and move on.
 
What this says to me is there is still lots of room for another great BR game. However, I'm not really sure Apex is it after having played it and I wouldn't be surprised to see playercount drop significantly once the novelty wears off. The roll-out was good though.
 
Don't be naive! I've heard the term "premium mobile experience" thrown around before.

In fact "premium" is a term I'd associate with mobile much quicker than with a proper AAA title.
 
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