Titanfall Fans Outraged Over Extraction Shooter Cancellation: Is This the End for Titanfall 3?

Fans of the Titanfall series are grappling with the recent announcement that EA has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment, alongside layoffs affecting numerous team members across its incubation, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience teams. According to Bloomberg, the project in question, codenamed R7, was envisioned as an extraction shooter set within the beloved Titanfall universe. Despite not being the long-awaited Titanfall 3 sequel, the news has left many fans disheartened, especially considering it's been nearly a decade since the release of the cherished Titanfall 2.

"I just fell to my knees at Walmart," said one player, encapsulating the shock felt by many. Another fan expressed their frustration, simply writing: "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE."

However, not all fans view the cancellation as a negative outcome. Some believe that an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe might have risked the franchise's future. "Best thing that could've happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned," posited a user on Reddit, suggesting that a failed extraction shooter could have led executives to wrongly conclude that there was no demand for Titanfall games. "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 fan, with a follow-up comment of: "Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance."

"So sick and tired of 'extraction shooters'. They're so formulaic and boring. I don't want to loot bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving thru big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning and titans blastin'," suggested a fan, highlighting a preference for the original gameplay elements that made Titanfall unique.

"Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay," summarized another, indicating a relief that the project was not something they were particularly interested in.

The layoffs have impacted approximately 100 jobs at Respawn, affecting individuals in development, publishing, and QA roles across Apex Legends, as well as smaller teams working on the Jedi series and the two canceled incubation projects, one of which was reported on back in March, and the other presumed to be the extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.

These layoffs are part of a broader trend at EA, which has seen numerous restructuring efforts in recent 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. In 2024, a larger restructuring resulted in 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 their focus to Apex Legends. Mohammad Alavi, who had become the narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before its cancellation, shared insights into the development process with The Burnettwork. "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 project faced challenges, particularly with the multiplayer component. "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,” he 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.”

The emergence of the Battle Royale genre, particularly with PUBG's success in 2017, shifted the team's interest. Respawn developers found themselves more drawn to experimenting with a Battle Royale map using Titanfall 3 classes than continuing with the standard multiplayer modes. This led to a pivotal decision: abandon Titanfall 3, which might have been only incrementally better than its predecessor, to pursue a potentially groundbreaking Battle Royale game.

“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!”