‘Titanfall’ To Have Minimal Single-Player, If Any

Titanfall will have only minor single-player, if any.

What was considered the E3 2013 game of the year at IGN may not even get a single-player campaign at all. Titanfall turned heads when its debut video wowed onlookers at 2013’s electronic entertainment expo, and showed us a next generation title featuring men in bionic suits fighting giant mechs.

Titanfall promises a robust multiplayer campaign the likes of which should keep you coming back for more, but as far as the lone wolves … they may be out of luck.

With all of the time Respawn spent on the multiplayer aspects, founder Vince Zampella told Games Industry International:

“We make these single-player missions that take up all the focus of the studio, that take a huge team six months to make, and players run through it in eight minutes. And how many people finish the single-player game? It’s a small percentage. It’s like, everyone plays through the first level, but 5 [percent] of people finish the game.”

In other words, if Titanfall‘s single-player game is going to be such a breeze to fly through, they figure, why work on one at all? Respawn may be banking on people buying it to play with friends, as that’s where most of the big titles tend to get their money. With most single-player games, you play through it once, and maybe a few times to find everything, and you’re bored if the multiplayer is lacking at all. Multiplayer just has more long-term appeal.

Respawn had their developers split into teams, some on the single-player and most on multiplayer, and when they had to make a choice for resource management, they decided to focus on the long-term and put everybody on the multiplayer game.

Vince Zampella adds:

“Really, you split the team. They’re two different games. They’re balanced differently, they’re scoped differently. But people spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer experience versus ‘as little time as possible rushing to the end’ [in single-player]. So why do all the resources go there? To us it made sense to put it here. Now everybody sees all those resources, and multiplayer is better. For us it made sense.”

In the end, there may be little or no single-player mode at all in Titanfall, but from what Respawn sees on the profit and time margin, the sacrifice has to be made.

What do you think of Respawn adding little to no single-player to Titanfall? Would you still buy Titanfall if it had no single-player campaign?