14 DAY TRIAL // Respawn Entertainment has just confirmed quite a few details about the new Swampland map in the Titanfall Expedition DLC that's set to debut this month, while presenting a making of video.
Titanfall launched at the beginning of March for the PC and Xbox One and in April for the Xbox 360. The game impressed quite a lot of people with its big array of maps and the various multiplayer modes.
Even so, developer Respawn has revealed that it is going to launch different content for the title, from free game modes and items, to premium maps.
The first major add-on will be the Expedition map pack, which is set to launch this month and includes three different maps. The developer has already talked a bit about two of the levels, War Games and Runoff, and now the third one has received some actual details, in the form of Swampland.
According to Level Designer Chris Dionne, work on Swampland began in 2011 but it was mostly a flat level with a simple layout. It eventually got shelved, alongside other ideas like Runoff, but for the first DLC Respawn decided to revisit all of them.
"The first version of Swampland was an almost completely flat level with yellow fog and towering redwoods. The final version only began to take form after design on Titanfall was finished. At that point, Swampland had been shelved for almost two years while other levels and design work had taken priority," he said on the website.
The core theme of the map is the intersection of nature and technology and initial designs mostly involved IMC buildings laid out in a swamp with towering redwood trees on the outskirts. However, this layout didn't exactly feel right and the map lost its personality.
After a bit of testing, Respawn figured that the towering trees needed to take center stage, as pilots and titans were more than eager to interact with these fresh elements.
"Titans dodging around massive trunks; Pilots jumping from tree-to-tree like ninjas. All that additional infrastructure had pulled players away from this new and interesting fun that was happening around (and on!) the trees."
"I shifted the dense forest section to the center of the map, and kept three main structures as anchor points around the perimeter. This encouraged Pilots and Titans to pass through the woods as they moved from building to building. The final design push then focused on small changes to enhance those interactions - adjusting sight lines, making interiors more interesting to fight over, encouraging flow, and so on."
Respawn will organize an Expedition DLC live stream next week on May 12 and you can expect the studio to confirm a release date at that time.
Until then, admire the video with Swampland below.
