Titanfall 3: Is It Time to Abandon Hope For This Sequel?

Respawn has revealed that they are removing the original Titanfall from digital storefronts and streaming services, and the decision has divided franchise fans who no longer know whether they should keep holding on to hope for Titanfall 3.

For those of you who missed it, Respawn recently revealed via Twitter that they have decided to discontinue sales of 2014’s Titanfall starting…err…yesterday. They will also be removing Titanfall from subscription services starting on March 1, 2022. While Titanfall‘s servers will be kept alive for the foreseeable future, this decision essentially means that Titanfall‘s seven-year run is over.

There’s a lot to talk about in regards to the decision to stop selling Titanfall and eventually remove it from streaming services, but the part of the announcement that has everyone talking at the moment is Respawn’s brief reference to Titanfall‘s “future.”

While there’s obviously not much concrete information available in that tweet (beyond a soft confirmation that Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends will live on for a while), the fact that Respawn references a future for Titanfall beyond those existing properties has given some fans just enough reason to believe that Respawn may finally be working on Titanfall 3.

While that is certainly one way to read that information, other fans have offered a slightly more…cynical interpretation of that statement.

It may seem strange to think that a vague reference to Titanfall‘s future would make fans less hopeful for an eventual sequel, but the fact of the matter is that Titanfall 3 hope has been steadily dwindling for quite a few years now. Franchise fans started fearing the worst when Titanfall 2 reportedly turned out to be something of a sales disappointment (despite being beloved by both critics and fans), but it was the success of Apex Legends (a free-to-play battle royale game based on the Titanfall universe) that convinced many people that Respawn would never be “allowed” to make an another Triple-A Titanfall sequel.

Furthermore, members of the Respawn team have shot down Titanfall 3 rumors in the past, even though they love to seem to do so with assistance from some kind of statement like the one above that basically translates to “Hey, you never know.”

While Titanfall 3 rumors pop up every now and then (the game was even included in that recent Nvidia “leak”) the fact of the matter is that every official statement on the state of that hypothetical game has seemingly confirmed that it is not in active development and isn’t part of Respawn’s plans for the immediate future.

Between that radio silence (or worse) regarding Titanfall 3‘s present and future, the fact that Titanfall is being delisted with little to no notice, and the fact that Titanfall 2 fans who have stuck with that game’s multiplayer have long been battling hackers with little assistance from Respawn, you really do start to get the feeling that Titanfall is more of a legacy franchise for Respawn at this point rather than this thing they feel obligated to return to in a specific way.

Having said all of that, Respawn has been consistent in their assertion that the Titanfall franchise will live on in some form (which is essentially what Apex Legends is in its own way). While it’s starting to feel like the only way we’ll get even a standalone Titanfall 3 multiplayer release is if the winds of the genre change and start to shift the industry away from the battle royale craze (which is honestly something that Halo Infinite could help with), it also does seem like Respawn is genuinely interested in repurposing Titanfall‘s universe and ideas sometimes in the future.