14 DAY TRIAL // The big marketing push for the recently launched Titanfall might have focused on its presence on the Xbox One home console from Microsoft but it seems that initially the development team at Respawn Entertainment did not consider launching it on the next gen platform.
Richard Baker, the lead engineer working on the project, tells Eurogamer that, “Originally we weren’t planning on an Xbox One version of the game. I’m certain that having an Xbox One version has made our PC version much better – it justified the effort in moving to DX11 and even 64-bit.”
Development on the core ideas for Titanfall probably began shortly after Respawn was formed, mainly from veterans who left Infinity Ward after the company finished work on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
A decision about platform was probably made at some point in late 2012 or early 2013, at which point Microsoft managed to convince the studio to work on the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One in addition to the core release on the PC.
Baker believes that working on a next gen console allowed the team to improve all aspects of the game and create more efficient ways of delivering an improved performance.
He adds, “I think in the future that’s going to continue. The higher-end cards are always going to be able to do more, but a lot of the bottlenecks – especially on PC – are more CPU and with DX11 you can have the GPU do a lot more that the CPU did previously.”
At the moment Titanfall can be played on the Xbox One and the PC both in North America and in Europe and an Xbox 360 version developed by another company will be launched before the end of the month.
There are no plans to offer a cross-platform options for the title.
It’s unclear whether the exclusivity deal that Respawn Entertainment and publisher Electronic Arts have with platform holder Microsoft will also be in place for the inevitable sequel that’s set to arrive in about 2 years.
Until then fans of the multiplayer focused experience that Titanfall delivers will be able to also enjoy three downloadable content packs, all covered by a Season Pass, which have been confirmed as including entirely new maps.
The development team has also promised that free updates will deal with any bugs and balance changes and that they will also be used to deliver new game modes, with private matches high on the priority list.