Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall is sweeping both headlines and Xbox Live right now. It may the “it” game right now, but much like the Spice Girls, Justin Bieber, and Furbies, its shelf-life looks to be much shorter than its peers.
Microsoft’s Azure Servers are a Crapshoot
Utilizing Microsoft’s brand-spanking-new Azure cloud servers, Titanfall heavily relies on them to handle almost all processing duties for its AI. Not only did Xbox Live have an “unrelated” outage on its launch day, it is prone to frequent reboots that could lose your in-game progress.
Multiplayer-Only = Limited Appeal
The campaign in first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield merely serves as an appetizer before the main course, but Titanfall foregoes a single player mode for multiplayer only. This isn’t as much of a death knell as the other items on the list, but the aforementioned server stability makes this difficult.
Balance is Thrown out the Window
It might be hard to balance a game when there are giant Titans against human opponents, but Titanfall should have some semblance of balance. However, weapons like the auto-locking Smart Pistol Mk5 make battles too one-sided. Balance updates might very will fix this, but it really limits its eSports potential as it stands now.
The Barrier of Entry is too High
Titanfall may be a hot new game right now, but how is it going to bring in a new crowd of gamers? Those who have yet to upgrade to next gen could settle for the Xbox 360 port by Bluepoint Games, but those looking to play the real deal need a PC or an Xbox One. Between the $500 for an Xbox One, $60 for a game, and $60 for a year of Xbox Live, finding new opponents on Microsoft’s new box might be a little more difficult for those not named Daddy Warbucks.
EA Holds the Publishing Rights
There’s a reason EA has held the title of “Worst Company in America” two years running. Between their draconian DRM, their love of DLC, and that oh-so-nasty habit of buying and gutting studios, gamers have every right to hate the company. Respawn Entertainment announced a Season Pass for Titanfall a mere week before its launch, even though they are on record saying that there will not be one in place.
What do you think? Is Titanfall something that will be sticking around or it just another one hit wonder? Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts!
