Titanfall Community Reacts to Canceled Extraction Shooter and Layoffs at Respawn

Titanfall fans are grappling with the news that EA has scrapped another Respawn Entertainment project and laid off staff across its incubation, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience teams.

Bloomberg revealed the canceled project, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe. While not the Titanfall 3 fans have long awaited, many are heartbroken that Titanfall 2, a beloved title, remains without a sequel nearly a decade later.

"I just collapsed in disbelief at Walmart," shared one fan, while another posted: "I CAN’T HANDLE THIS ANYMORE."

"How many more times must we endure this before they let it go and leave us to grieve?" mourned another.

Not all reactions were negative, however, as some fans believe an extraction shooter in the Titanfall universe risked failing and potentially dooming the franchise.

"This cancellation might be the best thing for the franchise’s survival," argued one redditor. "A Titanfall extraction shooter could’ve flopped, and executives might’ve concluded ‘people don’t want Titanfall,’ instead of recognizing nobody wanted a Titanfall XTS."

"I’m okay with this being scrapped," commented another, adding: "Extraction shooter? Good riddance."

"I’m fed up with extraction shooters. They’re repetitive and dull. I don’t want to scavenge useless items, camp in corners, or creep through open fields for 20 minutes. Give me fast-paced matches, wallrunning, and titan battles," urged one fan.

"I was upset, then saw it was an extraction shooter and felt fine," noted another.

The layoffs at Respawn affected roughly 100 employees, including those in development, publishing, and QA for Apex Legends, as well as smaller teams on the Jedi project and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we covered in March, with the other believed to be the Titanfall extraction shooter.

These layoffs follow several rounds of cuts at EA in recent years. Earlier this year, EA restructured BioWare, reassigning developers to other projects and terminating others. In 2023, it cut 50 jobs at BioWare and an undisclosed number at Codemasters, followed in 2024 by a broader restructuring that laid off 670 employees company-wide, including approximately two dozen at Respawn.

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In 2023, it was revealed that Respawn Entertainment had worked on Titanfall 3 "with full commitment" for 10 months before shifting focus to Apex Legends.

Mohammad Alavi, who served as narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before its cancellation, told The Burnettwork that significant progress had been made on the sequel.

“Titanfall 2 launched, did its thing, and we were like, ‘Alright, let’s make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on it for about 10 months, full steam,” Alavi explained.

“We had new tech, multiple missions in development, and a first playable version that was as good as, if not better than, what we’d done before. But it was only incrementally better, not groundbreaking. That’s the critical point.

“We felt decent about it, but it didn’t have the revolutionary spark of Titanfall 2, you know?”

So, what led to the pivot? Alavi explained it was a mix of challenges in refining the multiplayer to avoid player burnout and the rise of the Battle Royale genre with PUBG’s 2017 release.

“The multiplayer team was struggling to perfect the multiplayer experience, because while some love Titanfall 2’s multiplayer, it’s a niche group,” Alavi said.

“Most players find Titanfall 2’s multiplayer intense but overwhelming. It’s dialed up to 11, and people burn out quickly. They enjoy it but don’t stick around for a year or two.

“We were trying to address that from Titanfall 1 to 2, and again from 2 to 3, but the multiplayer team was hitting a wall.

“Then PUBG dropped.”

Respawn’s developers found themselves more engaged with a Battle Royale map featuring Titanfall 3 classes than the traditional Titanfall multiplayer modes they were building. This sparked a realization: abandon Titanfall 3, which might only be marginally better than its predecessor, to create an exceptional Battle Royale.

“I had just become narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I’d pitched the story and the entire game with Manny [Hagopian]. We gave a big presentation, went on break, and when we returned, we decided, ‘We need to pivot and make this new game.’

“We canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves because we saw we could either make a slightly better Titanfall 2 or create something truly incredible.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always miss another Titanfall. Titanfall 2 is my proudest achievement, but it was the right call. It was such a bold move that EA didn’t even know for six months until we had a working prototype to show them!”