14 DAY TRIAL // Respawn Entertainment is introducing a new game mode to their first-person shooter Titanfall, titled Marked for Death, that has a slight Stephen King's Running Man vibe to it.
Marked for Death also seems evocative of Counter Strike's old VIP mode, which, of course, nobody ever played because it's not very fun to get AK bullets to the head from everyone while your main way of fighting back is curling into a ball and crying.
The new game mode starts off with a random player on each team being marked for death, which means that it will be highlighted on the other team's map as a red light. Teams then have the option to either mercilessly hunt down their mark, or attempt to prevent the same thing from happening to their marked player, who shows up on the map as a blue dot.
Pilots can earn points through certain accomplishments such as enemy kills, deaths, protecting the targeted teammate or surviving while being the marked player.
One match consists of several such iterations, where players are randomly marked for death and targeted by the opposing team, depending on how long the pilots can manage to survive.
Of course, there will be a friendly warning when you are randomly chosen as a marked player. At which time, presumably a popular track from Ludacris starts ringing in your head.
Finding ways to get out of harm's way will prove to be a challenging endeavor for Titanfall players, skittering across the walls with their Titans in autopilot at their back, attempting to make it as difficult as possible for the enemies to get a clear shot.
Marked for Death has the potential to make for both very static games, where everyone is hunkering down and turtling, preparing to mount a fierce defensive, as well as very dynamic games, where everyone is on the move and targets attempt to stay one step in front of the opposition while their team-mates shut down the enemy team.
The update is due in Titanfall's June update, which will also introduce some Titan customization features and new Titan burn cards.
The update introducing the new game mode will land on the Xbox One and Windows PC platforms sometime in the next couple of weeks. The Xbox 360 version will follow shortly after that, the delay being due to the fact that the Xbox 360 port of Titanfall is handled by Bluepoint Games, that have to integrate the new content in the game before they can serve it to the user base.