Titanfall 3 Was 10 Months Into Development Before It Was Canceled, Former Dev Claims

Respawn Entertainment was hard at work on Titanfall 3 for 10 months before the project was canceled so that efforts could be focused on Apex Legends, a former developer at the studio has claimed. Speaking to The Burnettwork, former Titanfall and Call of Duty designer Mohammad Alavi said that the game was well into development before Respawn pulled the plug on it.

"Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like 'Okay we're going to make Titanfall 3," Alavi said (via PCGamesN). "We worked on Titanfall 3 for 10 months in earnest. We had the tech for it, and multiple missions going. But I'll make this clear, it was incrementally better, it wasn't revolutionary."

Alavi added that in the end, a combination of the multiplayer team struggling to make the multiplayer mode accessible and the battle royale genre finding explosive success pushed Respawn to enter that genre. A prototype was made, company-wide interest was ignited, and the studio began working on Apex Legends. "We came back from break and we talked about it, and we were like 'we need to pivot,'" Alavi said. "We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves because 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.'"

Respawn's decision eventually led to the rise of one of the most popular battle royale games on the block, as APex Legends has been a mainstay in the genre since it first launched in 2019. Titanfall fans have still regularly called for a Titanfall 3 game to be put into production, but between its work on an upcoming Star Wars FPS--that's reportedly inspired by Dark Forces--supervision of another Star Wars game at EA, and continuous development of Apex Legends, Respawn has its hands busy.

Respawn founder Vince Zampella isn't opposed to the idea of Titanfall 3 being made eventually, but it would have to be the "right thing," before Respawn could commit to it. "It's such a beloved franchise for the fans and also for us. If it is not the right moment in time, the right idea, then it just doesn't make sense," Zampella said to Barron's.