Apex Legends (TitanFall Hero Battle Royal) [XO, XBSX|S, PS4, PS5, PC]

[Scott_Arm]

Ah k - the Kotaku story - https://kotaku.com/a-free-to-play-titanfall-battle-royale-game-will-be-out-1832291956

It just seems bizarre to poop this one out before the end of the fiscal year as a way to salvage the work on it while they also have Firestorm for BF5 coming out in March. Market-wise, sure, there's no overlap with Anthem, but in light of BF5 serving that market when they've got this game along with Free-to-Play and no stigma of the BF5 controversies, maybe it'd have been better to forget about Firestorm and pour more resources into Apex (crazy-talk, yes ); give BF5 owners some bonuses in Apex.

I don't know. Studios need to make money, or they go under. It sounds like it'll be unique enough that it probably won't impact the mil sim crowd that would more likely be drawn to BFV. Not to mention, I'm sure BFV will get some more sales if Firestorm is good, but most of the sales are already done. Resource-wise, I don't know how the studio funding would work. I imagine Respawn had to split an internal team to do maintenance and content for this, but if it ends up generating a lot of money then that could pay for itself. It sounds like the work that was done for this game was already paid for with the development of Titanfall 3.

 

[McHuj]

I’m kind of interested in this game, but the timing is really weird for EA given BF5’s firestorm is supposed to come next month.

A Titanfall BR game might be able to bring something unique to the table given all the BR games out there. I think it will kill any chance BF5 Firestorm has.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I’m kind of interested in this game, but the timing is really weird for EA given BF5’s firestorm is supposed to come next month.

A Titanfall BR game might be able to bring something unique to the table given all the BR games out there. I think it will kill any chance BF5 Firestorm has.

Firestorm is going to have destruction and combat vehicles. That makes it somewhat unique. Fortnite has destruction, though it operates a bit differently. I guess it now has planes as well. Firestorm will be the first one to really have a more military type vehicle, destruction element, and that could make it stand out. Honestly though, I think the financial model of free-to-play, or very cheap games-as-a-service BRs is the way to go. Sell cosmetics, emotes and keep the game going for years. I'd be curious to see how much people spend on Blackout's cosmetics. I would not be surprised if it's much lower per user, since the title has a shelf life of about one year. Firestorm will probably last two years, since I think they're on a 2 year cycle with Battlefield. That might work out better. The key to the BR model, based on Fortnite, is to do very regular content updates (2-4 weeks) and sell a ton of cosmetics to finance it. Overwatch has the same thing going for it with a lot of seasonal skins etc.

 

[eastmen]

Weird to see the quartering on b3d lol

I mean if its free to play I will try it. The movement and traversal in the first titan fall was amazing so if it as the same feel i'd love it

 

[BRiT]

Video stream for the game starts at 11 AM EST Monday.

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1092224787928080385

 

[AlNom]

Firestorm is going to have destruction and combat vehicles. That makes it somewhat unique. Fortnite has destruction, though it operates a bit differently. I guess it now has planes as well. Firestorm will be the first one to really have a more military type vehicle, destruction element, and that could make it stand out. Honestly though, I think the financial model of free-to-play, or very cheap games-as-a-service BRs is the way to go. Sell cosmetics, emotes and keep the game going for years. I'd be curious to see how much people spend on Blackout's cosmetics. I would not be surprised if it's much lower per user, since the title has a shelf life of about one year. Firestorm will probably last two years, since I think they're on a 2 year cycle with Battlefield. That might work out better. The key to the BR model, based on Fortnite, is to do very regular content updates (2-4 weeks) and sell a ton of cosmetics to finance it. Overwatch has the same thing going for it with a lot of seasonal skins etc.

mm... Very good point about the shelf-life. It does make me wonder if they shouldn't just keep the competitive MP separate with Apex and just expand it over time as a platform, especially with the impending generational crossover and the downsides to splitting the userbase between it and the full SP release. On the other hand, it may or may not have some bad implications for the engine side of things, considering the origins in Source (although how many Call of Duties were there before the idtech3 foundation was meaningless).

It's something that surprises me about Call of Duty's annual release where I think they've got an extremely non-optimal path of development in having to spend time & money to update and bring forward fan favourite maps while having some really awful development schedules that might mean crappier and crappier amounts of content per release despite the extended development cycles this gen (compared to PS360) when they could instead focus on proper season passes that just add content to a base game/engine ala successful MMO models.

Perhaps Titanfall 3 should take a page from Anthem and market it to folks who are more into PvE ( campaign & co-operative modes); I felt like Frontier Defense was heavily underdeveloped/utilized/rated, but still had a lot of potential, and I certainly didn't mind their cosmetics model in the second game.

 

[Scott_Arm]

This twitter account is doing a roundup of all of the good parts of the teaser stream that isn't just staring at a field. https://twitter.com/RespawnRoundup

Full preview is at 3pm Eastern Time, noon Pacific.

 

[AlNom]

What a bizarre PR schedule.

Art direction looks solid. I don't see how this looks out-of-date at the moment. :s

 

[Scott_Arm]

Art direction looks solid. I don't see how this looks out-of-date at the moment. :s

What a bizarre PR schedule.

Neither do I.

Pretty much every huge streamer on twitch, plus a lot of small streamers from twitch, mixer and youtube were at a special event. Lots of pics online. Curious to see what the actual launch will look like later today. Word of mouth through streamers is a good approach for this kind of game.

 

[AlNom]

I'm starting to wonder if it was more about the gameplay direction they wanted for TF3. Thinking back to how TF2 ended, I had the impression you were basically going to go the route of mercenaries (felt very Mechwarrior/Battletech-ish if you get my meaning). Maybe with Bioware beta testing the co-op campaign as a feature *cough* etc., it'd be more forward-looking to switch to Frostbite for SP/PvE and do something similar to Anthem but with a Titan mercenary group and also integrate Frontier Defense into the campaign missions.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It doesn't really look like typical Titanfall gameplay either. Looks like the map areas have a bit of vertical, but they haven't shown any wall running. Looks like it has fast movement. Should be quite a big diff between this and a Titanfall 3.

 

[AlNom]

One would hope they have plans to introduce Titans later on - maybe just a dev time issue at the moment? Get the game up and running at a relatively solid 60fps with massive battles, then work out how to throw Titans into the mix.

Have an experimental Voltron-Megazord-Combiner Titan where your 3-man team puts one together. :V

 

[Scott_Arm]

Looking at the teasers, it seems like they've very intentionally designed it to stand apart from Titanfall so there will be room for both. Doubt this will ever get titans, or maybe even wall running.

Edit: So far some kind of stealth sniper with throwing knives, a lady that runs fast and has shoulder-mounted rockets, a guy that looks like he should be in Mortal Kombat that gasses you, and now a person with some kind of drone.

Edit: Drone is a shield. Sound effects are awesome.

 

[AlNom]

mm... weird.

 

[Scott_Arm]

This is very much Overwatch + BR. Looking forward to the full reveal.

 

[AlNom]

Heh, well, I guess if we go by the boss fights in TF2, an overwatch-like cast wouldn't be too far fetched. Unfortunately, not big into PvP although OW was fun for a little while because waifus.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Robot character has a zipline and a grappling hook.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Player that can kind of ghost or teleport. One that can make holograms. A big boy with a small shield.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Starts in about 5 minutes.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Game looks very good. Fast movement, high jumping, sliding like titanfall. Didn't see any wall running.

Has some respawn mechanic but I missed that part. Not sure how it worked.