I was supper excited to play the Titanfall 2 Open Multiplayer Tech Test this weekend, but after this weekend I am less enthused to pick up the game. Before I get too far in to this I should say I am all for developers changing up their games. No one wants to play the exact same thing over and over again, but in most cases the changes Titanfall 2 has made have not been for the better.
First up and most bizarrely it seems that Titanfall 2 really hates Titans. Instead of having a timer to get your Titan you have to earn them by doing things in the game, like killing other players or completing objectives. Which is fine, but it takes forever to gain enough points to charge up your Titan meter, so if you are playing Hardpoint mode where you have to take different locations on a map and hold them and you are having a bad round you may never even get a Titan. In fact the best way to get a Titan in Hardpoint is to just camp at the location closest to your spawn point and get points for ‘Holding” the Hardpoint.
Things are a bit better in the new mode Bounty Hunt where you get money for killing AI controlled players and Titans, and then you have to try and rush to different locations to bank your cash. You can also kill other players and steal their cash. Because you are always shooting something the Titan meter fills up much faster, so there will always be a couple of giant mechs around.
The problem is that the Titans in Titanfall 2 have been majorly nerfed. They die much quicker, and they do way less damage. They are also locked out of important areas. You can’t take control of any Hardpoints while in a Titan and you have to get out to bank your cash. In other words even though you spend a lot of time getting your Titan it may not be worth calling it down anyway.
The maps in Titanfall 2 have also gotten much worse. In the original Titanfall the maps were very vertical so you could use your pilot’s advanced movement to get around. In Titanfall 2 the maps are flat. So you mostly just run around and then use your grappling hook once you are close to a building for a speed boost. They are like Battlefield maps, but you don’t get the jeeps to make them fun.
Granted all of this is based off of a few hours with a small subset of what the game has to offer, and I didn’t play the Pilot versus Pilot mode, but I am assuming that would not fix this game’s lack of Titan problem. If the Tech Test is indicative of the final product I will probably skip Titanfall 2, and I loved the first Titanfall. There is still a lot of time until October, so a lot of things can change, and maybe the modes and maps I want to play just haven’t been show yet, but this test was really disappointing.
