The hype surrounding Titanfall in the months leading up to its release was the greatest seen from this generation of consoles so far, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s reassuring, then, to see that developers Respawn aren’t letting their place atop the next-gen FPS landscape slip, as they’ve announced yet another major update for the title.
‘Game update four’ is, rather unsurprisingly, the fourth update for Titanfall. Respawn didn’t say exactly when it’ll land, but we’ve been promised that it’s ‘soon’. We certainly hope they stand by their word, because it looks set to be absolutely huge.
The biggest addition of all has to be the announcement of two new game modes – and one new, overarching game mode. Allow us to explain. ‘Featured Game Modes’ will now be introduced to playlist rotation. These featured modes will only be available for a limited time only, and one at a time. When one featured mode finishes, another takes its place.
The first to be announced is ‘Marked For Death’. In this mode, one player on each team is marked for death. Kill the opponent VIP to score points, protect yours to ensure the enemy can’t do the same.
The second, which will follow after the conclusion of Marked For Death, is Wingman Last Titan Standing. In one of the game’s pre-existing game modes, Last Titan Standing, both teams begin the match already within their Titans. When you die, you cannot respawn until the end of the round. Whoever wipes out the other team first wins. Wingman Last Titan Standing operates in the same way, only there is now just two players per team. Intense.
Titan Burn Cards are finally arriving! As you can probably guess, they operate exactly like the existing Burn Cards for pilots, only they apply to your abilities whilst inside your Titan. There’s 14 of them, and they all either amp up your Titan’s weapons, or enhance your Titan’s ability. Interestingly, if you die as a pilot after selecting a Titan Burn Card, you won’t lose it – it only vanishes if you die in your Titan. There will also be indicators around Titans which have Burn Cards activated so you know who to gun for (or hide from).
Another eagerly anticipated feature is the addition of Titan Insignias. A little like how you can customise the aesthetic of your Spartan in the Halo series, Titan Insignias are rewarded to you for completing certain achievements or objectives. Slap the decal on your Titan to let everybody know just how bloody great you are at blowing things up.
Another fun-yet-functionless addition is two more Titan OS voices. Apparently the classic voiceover you would hear during games went by the name of Betty. You can now also choose Jeeves and Lisa, who will politely remind you of important events during a match.
There’s a few more minor tweaks and additions, not to mention an absolute slew of bug fixes. If you want to read all about them, feel free to head on over to the Titanfall dev blog to see them listed in full.