Titanfall Fans Mourn Cancellation of Extraction Shooter: Is This the End for Titanfall 3 and the Franchise?

Titanfall enthusiasts are grappling with the recent announcement that EA has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment, alongside laying off numerous employees across its incubation, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience teams. According to Bloomberg, the canceled project, codenamed R7, was intended to be an extraction shooter within the Titanfall universe. While this news isn't about the long-awaited Titanfall 3 sequel, it has left many fans disheartened, especially as Titanfall 2 remains without a sequel nearly a decade later.

"I just fell to my knees at Walmart," said one player, capturing the emotional impact of the news, while another expressed sheer frustration: "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE."

However, not all reactions to the cancellation were negative. Some fans believe that an extraction shooter in the Titanfall universe might not have been successful, potentially damaging the franchise's future. "Best thing that could've happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned," posited one user on Reddit. "A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say 'see, the people just don't like Titanfall anymore,' instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS."

"I’m fine with this one being canceled," responded another, followed by a dismissive comment: "Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance."

"So sick and tired of 'extraction shooters'. They're so formulaic and boring. I don't want to loot a bunch of useless stuff and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving through big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning, and titans blasting," suggested a passionate fan, echoing the sentiment that the canceled project might not have aligned with what fans truly want from the Titanfall series.

"Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay," summarized another, indicating a mix of relief and resignation.

The layoffs affected approximately 100 jobs at Respawn, impacting development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller teams working on the Jedi project and two canceled incubation projects, one of which was reported on back in March, and the other believed to be the extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.

These cuts are part of a broader trend of layoffs at EA over the past few years. Earlier this year, EA restructured BioWare, moving developers to other projects and laying off others. In 2023, it eliminated 50 jobs at BioWare and an unknown number more at Codemasters. Additionally, in 2024, a larger restructuring led to 670 workers being laid off company-wide, including around two dozen workers at Respawn.

In 2023, it came to light that Respawn Entertainment had worked on Titanfall 3 "in earnest" for 10 months before shifting focus to Apex Legends. Mohammad Alavi, who was the narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before its cancellation, shared insights with The Burnettwork about the development process.

“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right?

"We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right?

“And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?”

Alavi explained that the decision to cancel Titanfall 3 was influenced by challenges in the multiplayer aspect and the rising popularity of the Battle Royale genre, particularly with the release of PUBG in 2017.

“The multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,” Alavi said.

“But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it’s really good, but it’s just too much. It’s cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play a year, two years,’ right?

“So we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying.

“And then PUBG came out.”

Respawn developers were more excited about playing a Battle Royale map with Titanfall 3 classes than the standard multiplayer modes they were developing. This led to the decision to pivot away from Titanfall 3 to create Apex Legends.

“And at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’

“We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.’

“And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!”